00:00:00:00 – 00:00:32:14
Unknown
What is up everybody? I am so incredibly excited to bring this first ever episode of Manufacturing Transformed, podcast to you. this has been a long time coming, and it was, really special to interview our very first customer ever. Besides our own shop, Procyon Z. and this was Richard Olsen of South Arrow Marine, which we implemented pro shop at in 2009.
00:00:32:14 – 00:01:01:09
Unknown
If you can believe it. So, it’s, it’s just a really fun story. We’ve been connected to Rich and that company for, 2020 no more than 24 years, 25, 26 years now, because they were one of our earliest machine shop customers, a pro CNC. So there’s a lot of history there. and quite honestly, the transformation that they realized is what gave us the confidence to start the software company.
00:01:01:14 – 00:01:40:07
Unknown
And so if any of you out there are, current customers, you in some part have rich to thank for, the fact that pro shop is even on the market. So, it was a very special interview indeed. And, just a great, really kind of full circle moment for me. So thanks, for, digging into this one with us and, I know you’re going to enjoy this conversation quite a bit with Rich, so let’s get into it.
00:01:40:09 – 00:02:11:21
Unknown
Rich, my friend, I am so excited to be here talking with you. Thank you for being the very first guests on the Manufacturing Transformed podcast. It’s, a pleasure to be part of it. the the call, the other day, when you, put the invite out, no one, no one better. I’d like to share this experience with, obviously, you’re a big part of this, my successes and, fun journey that you and I have been on, for many, many years, so.
00:02:11:21 – 00:02:35:03
Unknown
No, I, I really appreciate them. I look forward to the next hour or so that we have to go. Thank you, sir. All right. So let’s start by sharing a little bit about cell phone marine and your history there. And, just what the company does and looks like today. Sure. Yeah. So south, our marine began in the late 50s.
00:02:35:13 – 00:02:57:01
Unknown
our original, founders, he was actually an engineer at Boeing, and, Boeing was, toying with the idea of, a bathroom door latch, of all things, a locking bathroom door latch. And, and, so, because they were black, they weren’t locking before that. I just, Yeah. You know, so very clever, in the awkward.
00:02:57:03 – 00:03:16:02
Unknown
So our, our owner, kind of went home and, in his garage was just kind of, toying with this idea of, this door latch. And he actually made, the first one out of balsa wood of all things and, and some plastics and whatnot, and, and, he took that back to Boeing.
00:03:16:02 – 00:03:36:07
Unknown
He’s like, hey, I kind of came up with this idea. They, they looked at it and they were like, oh, that’s pretty cool. Now make us a real prototype. Obviously, balsa was not going to work, although from the aerospace side, very lightweight, like. Yeah, yeah. I think I heard of you. That’s right. Yeah. So he designed, this, latch.
00:03:37:16 – 00:04:01:21
Unknown
and now I am going from the story that has created its, own, I guess, you know, the fish that was this big now is this big. And so this is a story that has just resonated through the years. the story is they went up a few flights of stairs and they threw this part off the stairs, and it came crashing down on the ground below.
00:04:01:23 – 00:04:24:03
Unknown
They went down below, saw that the latch still functioned and from there, pods basically were created. And that was the start of South our roaring in the late 50s. Well, I, I actually have that balsa wood, prototype in a shadowbox in our conference room, so it still exists to this day. So amazing. Which is cool.
00:04:24:18 – 00:04:52:23
Unknown
it’s been family owned. It started in a garage, basically in Seattle, Ballard area. that expanded a couple times, throughout the years. And then in the late 80s, we moved to our current location, which is in Mill Creek, just about 30 miles north of Seattle. And we’ve been here ever since. And, I started working here in October of 1990, kind of fresh out of high school and college studying accounting.
00:04:54:09 – 00:05:13:02
Unknown
I don’t know why accounting is. I was good with numbers. why not? Let’s do some accounting. and, it just, I got intrigued by the whole thought of manufacturing items. and, and we bought our first CNC machine, and they had no one to run it, and they were like, well, we have this machine.
00:05:13:02 – 00:05:40:05
Unknown
This would be this will really revolutionize what we do. And, I was like, well, I’m good with numbers. so I took a book. I read, basically how to, G-code, figured out programing just by, reading a book. and, became a lead machinist, back in the early 90s. And, what was so crazy is you’ve seen some of our parts, Paul.
00:05:40:05 – 00:06:16:13
Unknown
And, this is back before we had, cam software at all, like, this was point to point programing. yeah. in fact, we were, we were just getting computers in general just around the shop, just to do just, you know, normal data processing type stuff. So anyhow, you know, this original, as you know, the over latches, it took point to point and literally manually keying that in, at the, at the, machine.
00:06:16:15 – 00:06:43:15
Unknown
And it this is no joke. It took about 80 man hours to pee that in by hand, because, yeah, you know, there was sure that was 1000 moons. Yeah. I mean, it was just crazy. And, from there, we thought, what are we doing to ourselves? And, we we finally bought a cam software. And I, to me at the time was the, you know, the smartest money we had ever spent, right?
00:06:43:15 – 00:07:27:18
Unknown
Like, why have someone sit there for basically two weeks, mainly inputting this when we could just, design it up and have it fly into the machine and, and, so, my journey through here, I got, I went from the manufacturing side more into the design side. and then more into the management role, to my current position, which as president, before I had gotten there, though, you know, I met a small company, out of Monroe that was doing parts for us, then up in Bellingham and, and when I said getting a cam software was our smartest move I’d ever seen us make, that was until
00:07:27:18 – 00:07:50:00
Unknown
we implemented Photoshop. so I think, you know, revolutionary for us. But we’ll get into that journey, I’m sure, along this way, but. Yeah. So that’s. Yeah, that’s kind of where, self-taught marine started how I, came into the fold, self-taught machinist, designer. and, now, like I said, current president, for South, our Marines.
00:07:50:00 – 00:08:10:21
Unknown
So, it’s been an amazing company. met a lot of amazing people within the industry. Very fortunate. Have great employees that, are here every day working hard for us. And, Yeah, I’m I’ve been so very thankful for my journey. And, with South Marine and then meeting amazing people within the industry. like your team?
00:08:11:12 – 00:08:35:10
Unknown
for sure. Well. Thank you. Well, it’s been a true pleasure and honor, so let’s let’s go back and add a little more color to that. So yeah. So pro C and see the machine shop. We started right out of college. we started that in 97, late 97. And I’m guessing I found you in some local guide or some yellow pages or who knows what.
00:08:35:10 – 00:09:00:02
Unknown
And next came knocking on your door with my little aluminum briefcase to some parts in it. I quite honestly don’t remember the initial meetings, but, but, you know, self became one of our, one of our biggest customers and certainly our, one of our biggest production customers because you’d order parts, you know, 500, 1000 at a time, right, which for a small young shop was like, Holy cow, this is like, this is fantastic.
00:09:00:02 – 00:09:26:06
Unknown
It’s some bread and butter work that we can run for days on end. Sure. As opposed to doing one off prototypes every, every, every day or so. But, yeah. So we we started the shop. You were a, you know, a customer for, for several years. then we moved up to Bellingham to be closer to, where we went to school and Kelsey and Matt, or Kelsey and Darcy up to their families in Vancouver.
00:09:26:08 – 00:09:46:13
Unknown
And some time around 2008 ish or so. I don’t know the exact time, but you you approached us and you said, hey, I’m looking to earn some extra money on the weekends. You guys have any hours you can give me? it’s right. I’d love to have you. Have you share the story of why you’re looking to earn some extra money?
00:09:46:18 – 00:10:09:03
Unknown
Yeah, I think I actually think, it was much earlier than that. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it’s more like 2003 when I, when I came knocking on your door and, so, I, I had this dream of where I bought a house kind of in the Stanwood area and had a decent sized yard.
00:10:09:03 – 00:10:31:10
Unknown
And I’m a big sports fan, as you can see, the stuff behind me. and, I have, I’ve always wanted to, a sports car to a place where, you know, I could out shoot hoops. and, with my. Well, at the time, basically just me, but, but I always wanted the sports car where I could have some pickleball and whatnot, and.
00:10:31:12 – 00:10:48:11
Unknown
And my lovely wife is like, that sounds like a great idea, but, you’re going to have to figure out how to fund this, you know, as we were, just starting out in life. And, so, anyhow, I guess I came knocking on the door. I did print a picture of the. This is, see if I can pull that up.
00:10:48:11 – 00:11:10:17
Unknown
That is the sports world that works for it eventually got built. so, so I, I was looking for extra funds to do this, and, so. Yeah, I came knocking on your guys’s door. you obviously you knew my background as a machinist, and and you guys had needs of of needing some weekend work, as you guys were always busy.
00:11:11:09 – 00:11:37:02
Unknown
and so that opened up the relationship for me to go up there on Friday, Saturdays and Sundays to, earn a few dollars along the way and, eventually, building my sports cart. So. And then younger than you then your boys were born somewhere in that range. Yes. Right. Yeah. In that time frame. Yeah, yeah. And, many hours on that sports cart, unfortunately, have since sold that house, live in, a neighborhood, without a sports cart.
00:11:37:02 – 00:12:03:12
Unknown
But there’s one that is, is, just there on site for me. So, but, yeah, that was a great, great times. Very good. So ultimately, you, you know, you use pro shop as you know. So we started designing and building pro shop starting around 2000. and probably by 2001 had the first few modules, basic parts, work orders, whatever.
00:12:03:18 – 00:12:22:23
Unknown
contacts. so it was probably still pretty, pretty light when you were using it on the weekends to run parts and do set ups and whatever you were doing. but you ultimately went back to, to the, like the leadership itself. And you’re like, hey, you got to see this system they built and kind of put us together.
00:12:22:23 – 00:12:44:02
Unknown
And you’re like, hey, we’d love for you guys to sell us pro shop. I think we were probably a little reluctant or a little like, you know, we’re not a we’re not a software company, we’re a machine shop. But ultimately we decided to give it a shot. And it was around 2008 nine. You got 2009. Okay. Where you guys we decided to give it a shot.
00:12:44:02 – 00:13:18:08
Unknown
And, it was quite an effort, given the fact that we had never had it anywhere outside our company. But, we did a lot of data migration, a lot of manual things that that didn’t scale or work. But ultimately, you guys switched off of what DBA? I think you were using before that was called DBA. and it was, it was a, it was a software based, system that was, supposed to help us and it did in some regards, but not at the level that pro shop and I what I recall is obviously working on pro shop.
00:13:18:10 – 00:13:38:23
Unknown
And I remember going to either you or Kelsey and be like, wow, this is amazing software. You know, where can we give it? At that time, I had no idea that you guys had, built it as an internal tool, just for process and see. So I was like, wow, this thing’s amazing. Like, this would revolutionize how I do my business down itself.
00:13:39:01 – 00:14:07:14
Unknown
And then when you guys had told me it was, you know, basically a tool like you guys self build, I was like, that’s sucks. You know, I was like, wow, okay, I guess I’m not getting this. And then and as I had been up there a couple years helping out, you know, it was conversation was like, hey, what would be the opportunities if you guys ever, you know, potentially wanting to do this at a second location.
00:14:07:16 – 00:14:27:20
Unknown
And like you said, it just wasn’t in the cards for you guys. and I, I, I think I kind of died there for a couple of years, if I recall, you know, until one day, yeah, you guys had called and said, you know what? You piqued your interest with, the idea of pro shop. They’re a software company.
00:14:28:07 – 00:14:56:19
Unknown
yeah. What I do recall is I remember you guys coming down, installing it, and, you know, and, setting up these trainings and amazing, efforts by all of you. But we went from, the install of on October 9th, and we shut everything off our old system. We thought we were going to run parallel for 30 to 60 days.
00:14:57:10 – 00:15:30:05
Unknown
we shut DBA down in less than two weeks. Holy smokes. I did not realize that. Yeah. So we we, we just were like, you know what? Why why put ourselves in. So before the end of October, we were, we were 100% committed to, pro shop and just let DBA go. We had to do a few manual inputs through DBA, but for the most part it was closed off and we were, we were running no longer parallel, within two weeks, which was amazing.
00:15:31:03 – 00:15:55:07
Unknown
so yeah, really, that must have been a real leap of faith to put the running of your whole business with a couple, a few hoodlums, you know, really ends up in Bellingham, right? You know, and I think I think that’s just it. Right? The relationship we had built for 15 years or so up to that point led me, to believe that this wasn’t going to fail.
00:15:55:07 – 00:16:15:01
Unknown
I knew that you guys would be there every step of the way. if there was an issue. So it was never. You know, you talk about a leap of faith. I never felt that way. I felt it more as a, a belief, a leap of opportunity. and it was, you know, it was just brilliant.
00:16:15:02 – 00:16:45:02
Unknown
Just brilliant from day one. Yeah. Right. So, thank you for filling all that in. so when, when, when we finally sold Pro CNC in 2014 and, and then it was 2016 before we actually opened up a website because we well, I had a year transition after we sold and, and stuff, but, we did a video with you, pretty early and you actually came up, and shot at it and going in with us.
00:16:46:04 – 00:17:11:16
Unknown
and I remember some of the talking points as we were just like asking you questions about the impact that it had on self and the things that I still remember to this day, even though I haven’t watched that video in a few years, I’m sure is. You said that, you had you guys had, I think, two full time expeditors and a late order list that was pages and pages long for years, like just barely.
00:17:11:16 – 00:17:37:12
Unknown
I think the term used was like, barely keeping your head above water. Yes. And DBA didn’t give you the visibility of the insight and the tools to maintain that. and then you also had, I think, I think two full time job planners, just like issuing work orders and doing things which very quickly you freed up one of the planners and both expeditors correct to do more value added things.
00:17:37:19 – 00:18:00:06
Unknown
yeah. Can you just add that late order list like dropped to almost nothing, but except for a few super long lead time outside process type jobs. Yeah. So yeah. So with DBA, you got it. You basically, hit it perfectly is we would have these, morning meetings that would discuss, you know, where we were at, what things?
00:18:00:12 – 00:18:27:00
Unknown
we’re going to be able to drop off the pass, do list, and then what things are going to now hit the pass to listen. And every morning it was like, wow, we’re going to be able to get these three off and we’re going to add these three. Unfortunately. Or you know, however many, it just felt like, you know, the list maintained at whatever number level we were never we were never able to tread beyond, just checking a few things off, adding a few things on.
00:18:27:00 – 00:18:53:21
Unknown
And we ran like this for a couple of years. We were growing as because the, seven, eight, seven program was coming into development. and so, Boeing at that time and the aerospace industry was seeing a boom. So those are coming in pretty aggressively. for us, which is great. yeah. But you know, with that, it forced more man hours of, of managing this.
00:18:53:23 – 00:19:19:19
Unknown
And, and a lot of stress, too, and a lot of stress for sure. Right? Yeah. And, we just just didn’t have visibility. It had the ability to track, but it just didn’t give us full visibility of everything on all aspects. And so it literally was people running around with notebooks on paper looking for items and, and where were they at?
00:19:19:19 – 00:19:44:09
Unknown
And then if you needed status updates, you had to find that person. You know, it was just everything was a little bit everywhere and nothing was organized. it was it was just super painful. So, yeah, the stress levels was, through the rough, amazingly, our customers, still stayed with us because our product itself speaks for itself.
00:19:44:17 – 00:20:05:13
Unknown
it’s a very high quality product that we we manufacture, but it, it just led for, a lot of, a lot of headaches. So. Yes, from that side, once pro shop came in and we started using it, utilizing it, we realized, wow, we don’t need these people running around with pieces of paper. it’s all right.
00:20:05:13 – 00:20:33:04
Unknown
They’re visual to us. We can see where everything is at, whatever aspect of whether it’s an outside processor or, you know, internally or, in assembly, or what’s missing. I mean, it just gave us instant, overnight access to everything. So you’re right, we were able to take those resources and put them, to better use, and in some cases, which is always tough to say.
00:20:33:04 – 00:20:58:01
Unknown
There is, you realize those resources, that, you know, weren’t, weren’t needed, as of right. And, you know, anyways, like, we were able to just drop some resources, which, you know, if you can streamline things and cut waste and lean things out, you know, as how you, you know, look at your bottom margin, their profitability rates and those things jump, for sure.
00:20:58:03 – 00:21:42:02
Unknown
Yeah. and didn’t your inventory levels also ultimately drop considerably? Like you shorten your lead time so you’re able to deliver sooner with less inventory? Yeah. You know, when you when you have the ability to see your usage and, and it’s, it’s flow of being able to reproduce product. we were able to yeah. Reduce our inventory because before what we would do is we’d be like, hey, we’re always late on these, so how about we just build up, plus run a product and so, sure, now we’ve gotten these late orders out of the way, and now we can actually, handle some production until we we run out of and and we put
00:21:42:02 – 00:22:11:05
Unknown
ourselves in that same cycle. but it just gave us the ability to go. Hey, you know what? Our usage really is this amount a year, per shop gives us the ability to, or that, you know, it still does. But at that time, I was like, wow, look at this. We know when we get to this quantity, it’s going to ask us to order whatever quantity we feel is, is a respectable, reorder point and, stock level for, usages.
00:22:11:05 – 00:22:42:00
Unknown
And so, yeah, inventory, being able to manage that and, and condense it to, I guess real life, numbers was, a huge advantage once. for sure. for us with pressure. Yeah. it’s. Yeah. And it was quite honestly, it was that, it was those results that we weren’t I don’t I don’t know if you were expecting it, but we certainly didn’t quite know what to expect.
00:22:42:00 – 00:23:04:22
Unknown
But it was those results that in part gave us the confidence, like, wow, this is a pretty remarkable result. You know, better than, or different than I guess we might have expected. which gave us the confidence to, you know, take those next steps about really like this was, you know, sort of a trial, like if it had crashed and burned itself.
00:23:04:22 – 00:23:31:09
Unknown
We’ve been like, yeah, we’re just we’re going to stick it out as a machine shop and not going. Right. But you know, I think about, you know, the, the one thing you when you take on big journeys, you know, you always want to know, okay, what’s my ROI for something like this? Because, you know, you the quicker you’re able to get that return, the better off it is.
00:23:31:09 – 00:24:12:01
Unknown
And and this was such an unknown for you and and our sales because it was, you know, we were, you know, quote unquote, that guinea pig, you know, for you guys. And, you know, I would say the return on investment to me is what ultimately was, so shocking. you know, I can’t recall now, but I’m going to guess within, less than a year’s time, knowing that we’ve been able to take these other resources and spread them out to other areas and not pay them to just do what they were doing for us.
00:24:12:17 – 00:24:46:20
Unknown
the return on investment for us was just very basically almost an overnight success story, by going to the, you know, a paperless system and, right. And so that part was amazing. I think in the video, again, we shot a 2015. So nine years ago or so, I think you’d said it was, you know, just the labor and the, the meeting, the one hour daily meetings you stopped having, as well, and inventory reductions was at least like 300% or something.
00:24:46:20 – 00:25:10:13
Unknown
But yeah, in that first year. But the real thing that stood out to me and maybe you can recall this is at the time you guys were about, at about 35 employees. I think you said doing about 8 million or so in revenue. And when that was from 2009 to 2015, you had like more than doubled to like 18 million in revenue.
00:25:10:15 – 00:25:33:02
Unknown
Correct. And it was doing it basically the same level of employees. And you said you’d need probably about ten more people, you would have guessed to manage overhead and all the other functions if you had not been using Photoshop. Yeah. No, you’re absolutely right. Yeah. We were about 8,022,009. And yeah, I would imagine you’re about right. We were 16 to 18 by 2016.
00:25:33:02 – 00:25:57:15
Unknown
And and we basically took on that double growth with almost the same, headcount, which is ridiculous and just ridiculous to think about. you know, now you guys do outsource a fair bit of your machining. You do all your assembly. And it’s worth noting for people, everything that leaves out of your door is a fully assembled product of your own design.
00:25:57:18 – 00:26:23:11
Unknown
Right? Engineering. you’re buying machined parts, you’re making your own machine parts, but it’s all going into, you know, making a mechanical assembly that you guys put together and then sell. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And, yeah. And we still outsource our fair share and, always looking for additional, resources. So knowing, we’ll see. a lot of, shops, you know, feel free to reach out.
00:26:24:14 – 00:26:53:17
Unknown
we love working with contact info is, is at the end of the show. Yeah. We love working with new people, but, yeah. and so that’s a hard part. Two, right? You think of managing all your, some tiers and, and when you’re doing it with paper versus, doing it, digitally, it’s night and day, like, you can give them, show them real data of where the, you know, various their successes are or unfortunately, some of their failures.
00:26:53:19 – 00:27:19:00
Unknown
And, and, you know, we just didn’t have that before. so, yeah. And, one of you, we talked about the expediter and then the other notable thing that, I remember just so clearly was that you had these two planners and I think at the time you were guessing you were doing about eight, 8000 work orders per year, 8000 deliveries that are I don’t know.
00:27:19:00 – 00:27:44:05
Unknown
Yeah, work orders, I guess both built inventory or ship orders. so each of those planners was doing about 4000 orders each, and they were just barely keeping up with that pace. Right. But then one of them got freed up and the same person that was left, could handle both. Not only the 8000, but even a few years later, you guys were, you know, still close to doubling.
00:27:44:05 – 00:28:06:10
Unknown
And I don’t remember if you’d added another planner back in, but just doing vast quantities of planning and work orders. Yeah. So I think our, our biggest year is just over 14,000 work orders. And and we were doing it with about one and a half planners. we had someone that was kind of a floater between planning and purchasing for us.
00:28:07:03 – 00:28:27:13
Unknown
and so they would they would kind of, help out in both departments. So, I mean, just a massive amount, you know, if you break that down, the one guy you would assume is doing 10,000 of, versus 4000, I mean, it’s just a massive amount of, parts. I remember his there’s Carlos, right, with his four monitors set up.
00:28:27:13 – 00:28:51:01
Unknown
Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. Carlos and Shane. Yeah. Awesome. Shane. That’s right. So, yeah, I remember visiting and taking a picture of. I had never seen someone using four monitors, but he’s just. It was a you just master at that thing. Just went through this like crazy. It was so funny. I’m not sure if you recall, but, as Covid hit, you know, aerospace industry, obviously, a massive, hit.
00:28:51:01 – 00:29:09:11
Unknown
And so it gave us some opportunity to do some real cleanup that, we just hadn’t been able to do, with just full production. And, and we had had all these DBA work orders and notebooks that had just hung out because, you know, being aerospace where required to keep records for. Oh, I remember this. Yeah. For so long.
00:29:09:13 – 00:29:41:05
Unknown
And we were like, you know what? Let’s finally scan these into the system. And so we had the extra resources here to be able to take on this task. And so they sat there and they scanned, what we estimate to be about 3 million pages of, of data from, from DBA. Wow. And but because we still have some product that is, very has a longevity, that still are built in DBA, even though the usage is very minimal.
00:29:41:07 – 00:30:02:12
Unknown
We sought to have those records on hand. It was like I didn’t. So anyhow, we put all that in and when, we, we shredded all this paper after we got it in digitally and, I forget the number, but it was like it was like three tons of paper that got shredded. I mean, it was just a ridiculous amount.
00:30:02:12 – 00:30:26:02
Unknown
And and it had filled up basically our whole, our shipping and receiving bay of just these boxes of, DBA work orders. And I was like, wow, this is incredible. Like, this is how we used to manage our systems. Right? So and you freed up a bunch of floor space to put more assembly in or more offices or something.
00:30:26:04 – 00:30:48:13
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Well, we so we were growing and exactly that. That’s it. So we, we had this warehouse, kind of upstairs and, we were like, we need to start using the space. We’re getting just so busy. with growth in the aerospace. So we we, we took over that space and turned it into an amazing assembly area for for people.
00:30:48:13 – 00:31:09:16
Unknown
Unfortunately, as soon as we got done, not. But two months later when Covid hit and we were like, oof, you don’t really need the space, but, you know that that’s the way it goes. it is now humming, pretty aggressively for us. So we, I’m really glad we did it. so. Yeah, but it’s just, it’s been quite this cycle.
00:31:09:18 – 00:31:38:07
Unknown
So, speaking of Covid, what did you guys do in terms of any office type overhead positions that could have been done from home? Did you guys do planning and purchasing and things like that from home, or are we still sending people into the shop? So, what we had did is, we allowed, a few people that literally had no reason to come in because, you know, I guess everyone has a reason.
00:31:38:07 – 00:32:21:01
Unknown
But, you know, their jobs could 100% be functioned, remotely. We allowed them to, to go remotely, for a decent amount of time. and, and it was, you know, really quite seamless, like, you know, here’s a laptop, log in and do your job. I mean, if, the fact that people didn’t have to be here, really all we needed was manufacturing people and inspection, inside the, plant, for the most part, us, hiring manager and people where we, we would come in, just because we wanted to have a face.
00:32:21:16 – 00:32:46:06
Unknown
yeah. Of course. Yeah. but, Yeah, we have since, have brought everyone back in. as as great as remote is and and, it’s it’s just always nice to see a face and speak, you know, face to face and stuff. so we are 100% back in office, but being able to go remotely would.
00:32:46:11 – 00:33:05:03
Unknown
No way we could have done that. with DBA, I mean, just no way. so because everything was paper. Everything was paper. Yeah. But it I and I’m not good at folding paper airplanes. to get them, to go six miles to someone’s house.
00:33:06:04 – 00:33:27:13
Unknown
so I’m curious what the what it was like on the shop floor to, because, you know, people, especially machinists and people that are used to doing things a certain way, they have a real fear of change sometimes, for sure. What was it like to ask your team to get rid of paper? Stop doing things the way they used to do it.
00:33:28:23 – 00:33:53:21
Unknown
yeah. What was that transition like? That’s that’s a great question, Paul. Yeah, I and even those as managers, we were you know, you’re very apprehensive to change because, you know, as as tough as things were, we were still, a successful business. but you really get I mean, push was such a major change. Like it arguably one of the biggest changes we’ve ever made here.
00:33:54:02 – 00:34:21:14
Unknown
And getting people to go, all right, you are 100% not doing anything like you used to be able to do it. And and getting people to buy into that culture of why this is such a smart decision for for the company and themselves. yeah. It was a challenge. you know, we got some pushback because people really just love doing what they know.
00:34:23:01 – 00:34:54:04
Unknown
and, but that pushback quickly waned, to where people realized, wow, this literally is making my job easier and, and simpler and, and, you know, we still have many, employees that were here pre shop. yeah. And if I was to go to each and every single one of them, there’s no way any of them wouldn’t say, that they’d want to go back.
00:34:54:04 – 00:35:18:15
Unknown
I mean, you know, so it was, it was actually less challenging than I had anticipated. I expected, I expected a lot more pushback. but I’ve just made everything so easy for everyone that it turned out that it was just, easier than I had anticipated. even though, you know, it’s still have those set of challenges.
00:35:18:17 – 00:35:55:03
Unknown
Sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Did you have any, any employees that refused to participate and that had to let go? No. Thank goodness. okay. It was, it was discussed that here’s here’s what we are doing and, and we would love everyone to get on board with us. And, and for the reasons that, you know, we had stated and if for whatever reason, you aren’t able to and we fully respect that, we will we will have to look at, moving on.
00:35:56:09 – 00:36:18:13
Unknown
but it was it was such a clean transition for the most part, that, every and everyone just, bought in, eventually, you know? Sure. Maybe it took a few weeks and it it came with some stresses, right? Like there’s when you go from a paper, paper system to a paperless and all the data entry that has to be done.
00:36:19:00 – 00:36:46:21
Unknown
you know, we, we had had routings before that were set up, but now you’re basically starting over, you know, with, you know, everything a pro shop has and, you know, with the pictures and the language and work holding and tooling and, and, you know, just really setting things up. It was it was a long, stressful process for, you know, three, four months for a few of us that were having to put this stuff in.
00:36:46:23 – 00:37:15:23
Unknown
But that repeat order was seamless. And that’s where, it really, people understood, buying into it as a repeat. Orders just went so seamless. yeah. Compared to our old way. Sure, sure. So so I imagine that old way included, paper inspection forms. Did you know little in process sheets or. Sure. Yeah. For sure. yeah.
00:37:16:01 – 00:37:54:17
Unknown
How how did doing inspection digitally change your quality for scrap grade or anything? Yeah. So, scrap rate. was, it came down. We were fairly small, because we’re such a, repeating, type of work. Anyways, so we never had a huge scrap rate, but the fact that if, if you’re set up used to take three parts to get through, if as long as you had clean written instructions, you know, now you’re, you’re getting that down to, you know, one part, and so it’s not necessarily the scrap rate.
00:37:54:17 – 00:38:40:19
Unknown
It’s the, the time of processing those other couple pieces is, you know, is there and then the other side of it is now we can do and process checks where we didn’t have that. We, we had in process checks, but not very verifiable when they’re written down. the fact that there, they’re visual and you have basically, graphing involved in those and process checks, it makes it so easy to where basically it’s doctor stock, with a lot of our, our, machining, it’s like, hey, the numbers check out, just move it.
00:38:40:21 – 00:39:15:15
Unknown
Sure, sure. And, and I imagine that, since you outsource a lot of machining work, you have vendors, sending in their parts, and and were you doing the same kind of receiving inspection, right. In pro shop as well as opposed to recording that on paper? Correct? Yep, yep. And, so, yeah. And from the outside thing, things have gotten cleaner and, and if you’re, if you have good performing suppliers, you know, you can even get to where, you can import, you know, their data basically.
00:39:17:02 – 00:39:46:09
Unknown
you know, simply and, and. Right, and even take some of their stuff, talk to stock as well, which that’s huge. And, we just, the, the trust and verify, with DBA, I just we just want to be able to do it. Sure, sure. Yeah. Well, I know, speaking about that, and I just you just triggered my memory after we, you know, implemented with self.
00:39:46:11 – 00:40:06:07
Unknown
Our second customer was another shop that did work for you. Yeah. And I think wasn’t performing as well on delivery and paperwork and various other things. And you’re like, hey, would you guys go sell it to them? Right. Because because we want them to be a better performing supplier to us. Right. And we were like, do you mean our direct competitor?
00:40:06:09 – 00:40:28:02
Unknown
You know, that’s also making parts for you. Like, yeah, those guys. Right. And so we did, and I know they had great results and they’re still a customer today, but, I mean, that I think also gave us a vote of confidence. Not only, you know, did pro shop work well for you, but you were like, hey, you can help our supply chain.
00:40:28:04 – 00:40:53:22
Unknown
Yeah. You go help our our vendors. Right. and I don’t know if you remember, those conversations and remember the, you know, whatever improvements and performance that other shop had. Yeah. But, but, yeah, that was another part of the, the backstory of why we had the confidence to like, yeah, maybe the market needs pro shop because we now have two under our belt that were both successful.
00:40:54:00 – 00:41:18:01
Unknown
Yeah. yeah, I, I recall those, like, conversations I, I shop, still as, a part of, who we do business with and they, and they’re doing amazing things themselves. And, you know, the fact that they’re, long term customer and user pro shop is, Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, yeah. So, I’d love to ask.
00:41:18:11 – 00:41:45:06
Unknown
I know we’ve talked about audits over the years, both AC 100 and customers. Yeah. Can you describe just a little bit of. Yeah. Your your thoughts on on having Boeing or whomever or as auditors come to audit your system? I mean, my goodness, if there’s, if there is one area that pro shop just just knocked it out of the park, it’s the audit system.
00:41:45:06 – 00:42:17:01
Unknown
You guys have made it. so our, our quality team can come in with the, these auditors and basically, unless they want to do a shop visit and talk with people, they literally can sit in an office, navigate to any and every piece of, you know, certs and workflows and, and, tasks training. you know, our, the backups, it’s just all right there.
00:42:17:03 – 00:42:54:22
Unknown
And it’s not that, this we’re able to do this. It’s the response we get from the auditors when they see us being able to do this and that, and they go, wow, we go to so many shops and we don’t know if we’ve ever seen a more robust, thorough auditing system than what a pro shop provides. And it’s, you know, for those that, you know, our, you know, struggle in that area, it’s overnight, just jaw dropping.
00:42:54:22 – 00:43:20:08
Unknown
What you’re able to get done from the auditing standpoint and countless people have come in, and done audit, whether it’s been, you know, Walmart or Boeing or our ASE audits or, or whomever and everyone just, 100% blown away. And it’s so easy. They’re just so easy to perform now. sure. Yeah, sure, I love it.
00:43:20:11 – 00:43:43:16
Unknown
Yeah. Knowing that, you know, taking something that used to take probably, you know, days or weeks of prep time and a whole bunch of stress to actually perform and make that so seamless and easy. Is it the case that your prep time has dropped considerably? Oh without question. Yeah. And stress. Right? Like no one likes an audit. Like, I mean, your employees are uptight.
00:43:43:16 – 00:44:02:02
Unknown
You’re ulcers. Managers are like, oh, you know, what am I where are we going to have, failures or, you know, are they going to find faults that we don’t even realize we have, which are all good? Right. You want to find those faults, but yet it brings a level of stress of, like, I think we’re running pretty good.
00:44:02:04 – 00:44:29:11
Unknown
And. And then you realize, oh, I’ve got all these deficiencies that we didn’t see. I, I don’t I don’t have those worries. so the prep time is minimal. The, the results we see are, you know, minimal. So the impact it has on us, from us just being able to continue to work, as we do is, is immense, right?
00:44:29:11 – 00:44:50:23
Unknown
Like, let us continue to do what we do great at and and not worry about it. And sure, if you find a small hole or something that needs to get cleaned up, it’s not anything that’s over the top. I guess a company wide changes. There’s usually just a couple minimal things, and maybe someone missed something. along the way.
00:44:51:03 – 00:45:24:02
Unknown
We’re still humans. yeah. And pro shop. Like anything, it’s data. And data. you still got to make sure you, you know, you do your, perform those tasks correctly. but, yeah. So it’s been great. Amazing. I, I want to ask about the, the change obviously for those, for management and those that were kind of on the front lines of trying to deal with those, you know, that late orders all the time.
00:45:24:10 – 00:45:51:00
Unknown
I’m guessing the stress level just came down considerably. Did did it affect just the general culture of the company and, you know, and, you know, you personally and just those that who’s next are on the line for the performance of the company. Yeah. So I mean, you know, every job has stresses even to this day self-governing has stresses.
00:45:51:00 – 00:46:21:16
Unknown
Right. Like but the the battles that we are fighting now are, are way different. I guess pre pro shop, so that it was I had angry employees. I mean like they just felt like they could never get ahead. no matter no matter what we were doing. we were just, I guess, doing just enough to appease the customers.
00:46:21:16 – 00:46:48:03
Unknown
But we were, we were never going. We weren’t getting beyond that. And so at that point, you know, employees, they become, they they feel, you know, they’re inadequate or or not not performing at a level that the company has expected. And, and, and, and because you got people that are, you know, always harping on you because a customer is needing products.
00:46:48:03 – 00:47:21:16
Unknown
And so once we were able to minimize those impacts of late deliveries and things like that, I think it gave employees the opportunity to, realize that they, they did have value, for us. And, and we were able to maybe put in place, you know, more of a, morale type, systems for our employees because we’re not taking those efforts just to, help meet customer demands.
00:47:22:07 – 00:47:52:09
Unknown
and so, without question, stress levels for many, many, many of us, dropped significantly, within a few months after having pro shop, running within the, the organization. well, that’s, I would say that’s, that’s one of the best feeling wins for us, you know? I mean, I know how much you know, you’ve known Kelsey for decades now, and myself and and our whole team today.
00:47:54:04 – 00:48:24:06
Unknown
just, Yeah, it feels really good when it’s, like, the personal, the personal impact, not just the business impact, but, you know, and that one that’s so positive. well, you know, I was gonna say similar to, like, you guys, I even remember back, working for you guys as presidents. You guys always had that, high value of trying to really understand work life balance, even with your employees back at, presidency.
00:48:25:12 – 00:48:58:20
Unknown
and I’ve been able to, take a lot of those teachings that I was, I was able to get, from working with you guys and utilize that here. but that work life balance doesn’t happen if I’m not able to, you know, have that, those trust levels come down. And so the fact that with, pro shop and whatnot has had it eliminated a lot of that, it did allow us to take a look at that work life balance and go, okay, there is opportunities to still, work.
00:49:00:12 – 00:49:24:23
Unknown
yeah, but not necessarily, but still have that time to be with the family. And that meant, you know, for someone like me, I was running the businesses. Hey, I can literally not be in the office, but yet still have full access to what’s happening at the office, which is as a game changer. That’s awesome.
00:49:25:01 – 00:49:56:15
Unknown
I am, I think I’m all out of questions. We have hammered through so much good stuff. anything that you just want to share that I haven’t asked you? Yeah. I mean, for those watching, if you’re. If you’re on the fence, of of looking at, you know, you know, RPG systems, for yourself, there’s a lot of, options out there, and, and I would just say, you know, take a good hard look of what you need.
00:49:56:15 – 00:50:19:23
Unknown
I, I, I don’t know if you’re going to find a more complete software, than what pro shop has that we, we hear people use and job offers and, you know, whatever. there’s so many out there, these days. but, you know, with it usually comes a secondary software to be able to do, other tasks within their organization.
00:50:19:23 – 00:50:49:01
Unknown
And, and pro shop really is, a one stop shop type of software. you guys are, just such amazing people, such good people to and working for good people and with good people is, is a big part of, why we’re so grateful to be, with pro shop on this journey. you guys are just.
00:50:49:03 – 00:51:12:16
Unknown
You’re just great people. We’re we’re so privileged to, like I said, be on this journey with you guys. we feel the same way from, from, you know, boys and girls clubs, things that, you know, you’ve been a part of for years and going to sports events that you’ve invited us to, and just. Yeah, it’s it’s yeah, it’s been a very fun relationship outside of the business side of it.
00:51:12:18 – 00:51:40:07
Unknown
Sure. Yeah. thank you so much for that. you know, the name of this podcast, which we, went back and forth with dozens and dozens of different names. You know, we ended up with, manufacturing transformed, how in sort of a nutshell, how would you say Pro Shop has transformed itself? Well, it’s, if you think that’s a fair word to use.
00:51:40:07 – 00:52:16:18
Unknown
Yeah. It it. Well, that’s such a good word. Transformation. Right. Like, our organization is through is impeccable. Now, like before, our organization was just scattered. I mean, it was just unbelievably, chaotic. the team that I have, are really are bought in. They’re invested in pro shop, they’re invested in, succeeding and having self be a really, strong company in the aerospace industry.
00:52:18:03 – 00:52:42:15
Unknown
and I’m not saying that wasn’t always the goal. I just don’t know that we had gotten ourselves there, before pro shop, to where I feel that we’ve, we we are there or closer to striving to to that. And that’s, I would say that’s kind of one of the biggest, transformations is, is we really are an industry leader in what we do.
00:52:43:20 – 00:53:18:10
Unknown
and a lot of that has to do with the fact, because we’re able to really see and understand what we do. Well, and, and that’s a big part of pro shop. Awesome. Appreciate that. Rich. Well, I can’t thank you enough for this last hour and for the last, you know, 24 years, you know? Yeah. Part of our journey, just from the earliest days and making parts to everything else we’ve been through since, you’ve definitely been a major part of the growth story of Pro Shop, and I’m forever grateful for that.
00:53:18:21 – 00:53:42:11
Unknown
as are we. And and, luckily, it doesn’t end here. we’re. No, it doesn’t work. you still too early steps of this? Yeah. Awesome. Rachel, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. And, I know there’s, a lot of folks will be really interested to to hear this, because, you know, the name self has been thrown out all sorts of places in various times.
00:53:42:11 – 00:54:00:13
Unknown
And, and, here in the real backstory, it’s going to be really interesting to a lot of folks. So thanks for sharing it with me. Absolutely. Cheers to you and the team. And, we’ll catch up here soon. Paul, thanks for. Okay, bye. Oh, my gosh, that was a fun conversation. Holy smokes. I just love that guy so much.
00:54:00:23 – 00:54:26:23
Unknown
he’s just been such an incredible partner, advocate, friend of of ours for so long. So, I am going to get Kelsey on the, on the, on the line here and debrief and, kind of bask in, this conversation that I just had with Rich. So let’s, let’s get Kelsey on the phone here.
00:54:27:01 – 00:54:48:11
Unknown
Hey there, buddy. So you know who I just spoke with? I just spoke with Rich itself. customer number one. Of course, besides our own shop. And, man, I tell you, that was that was it was such a great idea to do him as the first manufacturing transformed guest. Because he was the first client. Yeah, it was a walk down memory lane, I tell you.
00:54:48:12 – 00:55:09:07
Unknown
So, so I just. Yeah, very excited to tell you about it. So. Yeah, I mean, you know, most of the story, all the details, but there’s a few that just, just I hadn’t thought about in quite a long time. So, you know, as a, I mean, our relationship with Rich and was self started in the late 90s like right.
00:55:09:09 – 00:55:29:21
Unknown
I forget exactly the year they became a customer. But a long ass time ago. Right. Yeah. And then and then a software customer and he reminded, of course, the story about the sports court and his wife require him to get some extra money, pick up. That’s where he came up. I didn’t realize he was he he did that for a couple of years with us a little.
00:55:29:22 – 00:55:50:02
Unknown
Oh, yeah. Yeah I think. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It takes a while to earn a basketball court. Yes. yes. and then the thing that I totally don’t remember, I’m not sure if I ever remembered, but obviously when when they approached us and we decided we’d go ahead and give it a shot, you know, selling them pro shop.
00:55:50:04 – 00:56:10:19
Unknown
And then you and Matt did just crazy amounts of work trying to understand their database and figure out where the fans are going about database migration. Yeah, yeah. So there was, you know, undoubtedly a lot of back end work that you guys did, but then once they went live three weeks later, they turned off DBA. I didn’t really hear that.
00:56:10:19 – 00:56:30:02
Unknown
Three weeks. Wow. Yeah. I did not remember that either. They had it for 20 years or. Right. Just. Yeah. Oh yeah. So yeah. oh. I had forgotten that it was three weeks, but that is really impressive. I mean, they do a ton of work orders. They have a ton of different vendor pose. And you know, just so much in process.
00:56:30:06 – 00:57:00:18
Unknown
Yeah. That’s, that’s a lot to just like. Yeah, they were they were doing like 8000 or so work orders a year back at that time. And it’s now closer to like 20,000 or something. But, yeah. So that was, you know, just crazy to, to consider. and I can saving money and time like, you know, if you’re talking about, you know, oh, let’s, let’s do this transition over, you know, six months or let’s do it over three weeks and save ourselves a lot of hassle and, yeah, double entry and all that.
00:57:00:18 – 00:57:30:15
Unknown
Yeah. Because no one wants to do double entry. That’s just terribly time consuming. and then of course, the they freed up their three overhead people, that just were, but mostly the like the expeditors that were fighting that like 12, 10 to 12 page late order list for years and years, you know, and, I mean, I know they reduced tons of web and tons of inventory and freed up cash flow, and those are wonderful things for the business.
00:57:30:15 – 00:57:59:17
Unknown
But they’re not they’re not what the people are feeling every day. Right? The people working in the business like Rich, you know, he said they could barely keep their head above water. I remember that when we shot, when we shot the video with them in like 2015, they were like, we could barely keep our head above water. And, and it’s the, you know, when you have how many or how many if, if a page is 30 or 40 lines and you have ten pages worth, that’s 3 to 400 late jobs, right?
00:57:59:17 – 00:58:26:23
Unknown
And you’re meeting every single day with, with ten people trying to figure out what to do to fight the, the hottest fires, but then more fires get started. That. Yeah. Just like got off. Got off. Yeah. Like energetically. That’s got to be so stressful. So anyway, it just it was a really fun conversation. it, it really sank in just how big of an impact we made on the personal level for Rich and their team.
00:58:27:01 – 00:58:57:01
Unknown
And I could see looking back on why it gave us the confidence to like, for sure, this is this is our future. Like, we want to make more impacts like this. So yeah, I really I really remember that it’s interesting because some of the, some of the characters, you know, and some of the problems, from, you know, 2009 that we were helping them solve and that we were trying to figure out, okay, so you do this thing a little differently than we did it and see how can we how can we make this, you know, fit with within what we’re doing.
00:58:57:02 – 00:59:12:19
Unknown
And it was one of those adventures that was like, you said, I think, really affirming that so many of the problems that they were running up against, we’d already designed and built some things that could really help them a lot, you know, and, and self has been such a great partner over the years to continue that journey.
00:59:12:23 – 00:59:29:08
Unknown
Oh, well, you know, we do this thing and we feel like pro shop you know didn’t start out with this in mind. You know, is this the kind of thing that, you know fits. And we we were able to work with them and realize the difference in the way they process things and, you know, sort of fold that into the mix.
00:59:29:10 – 00:59:51:14
Unknown
And I think you know, from my last conversation with Rich, conversations with Rich not that long ago, we keep coming up with stuff that is helping them, you know, the new stuff that’s coming out. And so it’s kind of nice to think about. Not only have we had a 25 year history and they’ve been using Pro Shop for 15 years, but that we’re still able to, you know, improve and meaningfully change the next level of business know.
00:59:51:16 – 01:00:19:07
Unknown
So here’s to 25 more right. Yeah. And you know and keep in mind that they’re an OEM. It’s not like there’s another job shop. This is a very different kind of business. Yeah. They did some internal machining that was like the common element. But they design their own products, make or outsource it and then bring everything and assemble it and deliver OEM agreements to all their tier one, you know, aerospace or airplane manufacturers.
01:00:19:07 – 01:00:42:17
Unknown
So yeah. Yeah. And huge parts list two. That was the other thing I thought was really interesting is, you know, of those, you know, OEM sometimes OEMs have a limited product set, right. It’s like, oh yeah, we’ve got oh, they have so much bigger numbers. So we have valve. Yeah. So many thousands of part numbers finished finished goods assembly part numbers, you know, and all the subcomponents that fit into it.
01:00:42:19 – 01:01:01:04
Unknown
And yeah, being able to manage all those and all the different placings and the dash numbers that mean x and y and. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I knew you’d enjoy. I knew you’d enjoy that walking down memory lane with me on that one. So, Yeah. Awesome. Thanks, buddy. I’ll call you back after the next one. Sounds good.
01:01:01:04 – 01:01:10:11
Unknown
We’ll talk soon. All right. Thanks. All right. Bye.
