[Music]

all right hey there folks so I am here

today at Bent River tech there it is on

the shirt I’m with Sam um he agreed very

kindly to do a little interview and a

tour of his shop so Sam nice nice to

have nice to I haven’t been to your shop

before so my first time here um let’s

hear a little bit about your company

tell us about Bent River uh Bent River

Tech is uh a prototyping company we

predominantly do uh prototypes High mix

low volume kind of work and um guys like

it on the shop floor cuz it’s always

changing it’s always different yeah and

uh they’re not stuck doing the same

thing over and over and over again so um

I feel like that kind of builds a better

machinist too because they get an

opportunity to learn and grow touch

different parts work with different

customers and uh make a bigger

difference yeah very good and how long

how long have you been in business I’ve

been in business for about five six

years now okay yeah so we’ll go out in

the shop in just a minute but we’re here

in the office you can see it’s a very

sort of tech forward so there’s Sam

setup two double screen wide monitors

here’s some other stations lots of lots

of monitors there’s Pro Shop up so uh

they’re looking at the schedule um So

Pro Shop is your first Erp you were just

using QuickBooks before that can you

share and how long ago did you implement

Pro Shop uh 2021 is when we started Pro

Shop okay and can you just share a

little bit about what that process was

like the onboarding the training and how

it’s been going since um well you guys

started off with an implementation

specialist Zach over there was great um

I actually did a tandem with another um

customer we did kind of like a a shared

implementation session where we got

trained together at the same time yeah

um and it was it worked well matter of

fact I still keep in contact with him

every so often awesome we kind of share

our experiences with with one another

about you know pluses and minuses about

the software mostly all pluses sure um

but uh it was simple uh it was a couple

months you had homework you met together

a couple times a week right you made

sure that you followed the work order

and all the steps and the videos and

stuff and I think uh with repetitive use

I feel like you know a proficiency three

if you were to say anything on your got

it the training module absolutely 0 to

four okay cool and so um and you’re

using it fairly completely you’re using

inspection uh your first articles

obviously um

scheduling uh just the whole gamut yeah

um and you’ve also I think this is

interesting Sam has really leaned into

the sort of cloud first getting rid of

his server uh so everything is in our

cloud storage system um yeah can you

just kind of share a little bit about

your decision there yeah uh I like the

The Motto behind Pro Shop which is go

digital over the years you know being a

business owner starting off fresh

developing papers and more things to

worry about on the admin side when

you’re trying to run machines and do

everything else was just kind of an

annoy it so I adopted digital as early

as possible plus you know it’s 2023 why

are we carrying paper around anyway so

sure and so uh you know I think one of

the things I I’ve appreciated about how

Sam was describing this to me at an

event uh several months ago was um

basically getting rid of all uh well in

the cmmc language cui are controlled and

classified information um so you’re an

itar registered company so you know if

heaven forbid someone came in and stole

all the computers in the middle of night

you’re not leaking any sensitive data

there’s no you know cab data there’s no

models there’s no drawings on those

devices it’s all stored in the Pro Shop

Cloud uh we’re backing it up for you um

um giving you access to put other files

and store things that’s correct so just

makes the it side of it easy and secure

um so anyway so very cool so let’s uh

let’s go out in the shop and just kind

of shake take a

peek remnants of our uh our pizza lunch

right here um so you’re just you just

took over the space next door so you’re

going to be popping through doubling

your space absolutely um but uh yeah

tell us about your equipment here yeah

so um when I first bought the equipment

um it was a lot of older equipment old

CNC old manual equipment um that got me

started as a business owner but it

wasn’t going to take me to the next

level so what I’ve been doing is

replacing all that older equipment with

new equipment sure and uh it’s

definitely give us an edge in the market

and it’s newer technology so uh faster

feed rates faster speeds and feeds um

quicker tool changes it’s definitely

helped us uh get more competitive and

charge our customers more a competitive

price awesome and obviously we’re not

let’s go over here check out looks like

you you’ve bought a number of deons yeah

so great solid machine yeah um you know

so we’re here at uh at the station uh

there’s some parts you know nice uh y

AIS dual spendal lathe and you’ll notice

there’s no there’s no paper traveler

right there’s no uh paper setup sheets

there’s no inspection forms it’s all in

Pro Shop uh here we can see you know

doing some inspection that’s going to go

right into right into this station right

here and so if you’ve kind of

standardized on a single monitor like a

sidearm Mount yeah um and then just a uh

we were talking about these early you

might not actually recommend this brand

but just a small micro PC um just their

mounted right behind each Monitor and

you basically have the same setup at

every at every machine that’s correct

right so uh there’s this machine here

and then here back at this uh this uh

DNM 4000 same same kind of setup um but

again no paper

Travelers uh everything’s all in the

system and we’ve got things bubbled out

we use high QA to um Bubble print and

keep things

uh organized so that when our customers

get it they know where the dimensions

are and what location yeah iqa is a

great partner of us uh so yeah Auto

ballooning the drawings and then we can

import that inspection plan and then you

execute all your first articles in

process QC and then we were saying

before when your customers need it

you’ll submit them like the form three

of the as9102 yep and they are satisfied

with that as an inspection report that’s

correct and material startts all as well

so you used to back in the QuickBooks

days obviously you didn’t have uh any

kind of auto inspection form generation

or material certification can you

describe a little bit about what that

process is like and how it makes your

life bit easier well I us started

everything off on Excel spreadsheets for

a long time right um that helped me get

to where I needed to and create forms

when I needed templates yeah but uh Pro

Shop took it to another level and we’re

looking way more professional and our

customers and clients really appreciate

the consistency and layout and

dimensions and Clarity

awesome very good so yeah you’re 3 Ms

lathe and then a new wire EDM that’s

correct yeah great machine to have and

then uh so jobs come through uh

obviously um Machining inspecting and

then out to out over here to your

shipping Department this is your newest

brand new machine yeah congrats on that

beautiful beautiful piece of

equipment and uh oh you have a laser

tracker yeah so this is one of our

inspection tools uh the Kean laser um it

came out I believe this year um and we

inspect our parts using that piece of

equipment and um we can create reports

off of this and add them to Pro Shop or

we can break them out and use the

information that we get from this and

plug it straight into Pro Shop as well

beautiful yeah awesome and then comes to

shipping here uh you got your shipping

workstation so this is where you’re

generating off uh your your sht packages

and inspection reports and packing slips

Y and uh and out to the client yeah we

also uh do receiving as well over here

and so we’re using Pro Shop to make sure

that stuff is released correctly we’re

inspecting the material that’s coming in

and making sure that these guys are

using the right material uh from the

right work order and everything’s

labeled correctly full traceability y

it’s easy enough that’s the goal awesome

and uh Hey so that’s it quick little

tour uh thank you Sam so much for being

a client for giving us a tour of the

shop absolutely and uh we look forward

to hopefully doing some more of these in

the future because it’s I know people

love shop tours love to see what other

companies are doing and uh there’s a

great example of a a fast growing uh

shop that’s really Tech driven and doing

it right so thanks again Sam I’m happy

to have

you