00;00;00;00 – 00;00;35;11
Unknown
All righty. Welcome. And hello, everybody. We have an action packed, super fun and exciting webinar today. As per usual, if you have joined our webinars in the past, you know, I’m going to ask you to put into the chat. Where are you coming to us from? Where are you located? And I think that should be available to everyone.
00;00;35;12 – 00;01;06;52
Unknown
There we go. Phil kicks us off and lands Michigan. Thank you, Phil and Steven and Texas and Casey and Ripley. And Michigan. And Richmond. Fredrick, Colorado. More in Lansing, Michigan, California. Sydney. Sydney. Is that Sydney? Sydney is in Australia. Sydney. Leander, Texas. Santa Ana. Rodney in Mississippi. Hello, Rodney. Yes, Australia. Fantastic. Well, thank you for staying up. I think late.
00;01;06;57 – 00;01;34;00
Unknown
Maybe not late. Is it early? Late. I can’t remember. Right now, but awesome to have you come joining us from there. 5 a.m.. All right. Thanks for getting up early. Very good. Well, thank you again all for joining us. I know we have a good mix of both clients and future clients alike. If I could be so bold and really looking forward to this this hour.
00;01;34;04 – 00;01;58;43
Unknown
I want to give a huge thanks to our guests who will introduce in just a minute here. And this is I’m excited by this whole topic of really flipping, auditing and what it takes to get as name 100 certified and the stress level it should not need. So we’re going to have a fun upon time here.
00;01;58;48 – 00;02;22;31
Unknown
If you have questions, we will definitely have enough time for Q&A at the end. Please put their questions into the Q&A portion rather than the chat. They kind of get lost in the chat, but and if you want a chair at any time during this, please chair into the chat, because I know Ray and Kelly and our and our guests are going to share some pretty awesome things.
00;02;22;33 – 00;02;28;36
Unknown
So with that, let’s go ahead and get going.
00;02;28;41 – 00;02;53;16
Unknown
Elliott’s Luke from Ann Arbor. Hey, Luke. All right. I always like to start these with our mission statement because this is so important to us. We deliver powerful manufacturing software by deeply understanding our clients challenges in order to meaningfully improve their businesses and in turn, their communities and then hopefully, we’re going to demonstrate today that we actually have had some meaningful improvement with these businesses that are joining us.
00;02;53;21 – 00;03;14;51
Unknown
And if that in turn impacts their communities because they can hire more and grow their businesses, that’s that’s even better yet. So we’re going to this is the agenda for today. We’re going to be talking about preparing for audits the actual day of the audit and day. We’re talking about day, not days, typically the culture of auditing and audits.
00;03;14;56 – 00;03;36;06
Unknown
And then some practical tips, some more insights from our clients and then more in general, kind of using pro shop in your business in a curious concentric way. Love to start off by introducing Chris from Maverick’s Manufacturing Partners. Chris, you want to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you and your business. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, Peter.
00;03;36;11 – 00;04;10;05
Unknown
My name is Chris Blanch and the co-founder and president CEO of Maverick’s Manufacturing Partners. And we’re in Greater San Diego, California. Our core expertise is really in welding, but we offer services in all metal fab through our partner network and so on. But our real strength is in welding. And so when we were looking for an ERP system that would help us really optimize our processes, Pro Shop was really the one of all of the ones that we evaluated and down selected.
00;04;10;05 – 00;04;42;30
Unknown
Two that really kind of checked the majority of the boxes, even though it’s specifically built for since the machine shops. But one of the things that I really appreciate and want to highlight about Photoshop is the architecture is very flexible and the team support has been outstanding in terms of helping us meet our very specific needs of the welding codes and our customer requirements and obligations in terms of meeting the really high requirement welding applications that we’re we’re really targeting.
00;04;42;35 – 00;05;09;12
Unknown
We’ve even seen some of our biggest customers about other machine shops where they’re just trying to outsource the welding component. And so we actually, when we show them are our ERP system, they recognize how optimized it is and how amazing it is. And when we had our audit, our auditor kind of have the same experience in terms of he was familiar with Pro shop and our audit just sailed through very, very easily.
00;05;09;12 – 00;05;35;26
Unknown
So no anxiety with the audits. We had our 9100 certification within two months. That was the pre assessment, the stage one and the stage two and yeah, so we’re very pleased with that and happy to see everybody. Thank you, Chris. We will dig more into the nuance of that in the timeline, which is super impressive. And thank you very much for being here.
00;05;35;27 – 00;05;57;06
Unknown
And Adam, let’s let’s get to know you a little bit better. Yeah, Paul, thanks for having me on. This’ll be my first podcast. So farewell. Thank you for joining us. This is awesome now. But yeah, we’re a smaller machine shop in central Texas, just north of Austin, Texas. We are a machine shop. We do a lot of outsourcing to welding outside processes, things like that.
00;05;57;11 – 00;06;18;48
Unknown
I did purchase a small shop two years ago and before that even happened I purchased Pro shop to get trained on that and get everything lined up before I go into business. So it’s been great ever since and I have not lost two hour of sleep with us being certified. So it’s been easy. Thanks to Kelly and my great team at the shop.
00;06;18;48 – 00;06;42;39
Unknown
So awesome. And besides your contract manufacturing work, you also sell whiskey and cigar accessories. Yeah. Yeah, that’s so I was working full time job and I bought a manual 18 mill, put it in my garage, and I really know what to make. So I started making ashtrays and cigar stands and the that that went pretty well until I purchased the shop.
00;06;42;39 – 00;07;04;43
Unknown
And now I hardly have time for it. But that’s a good problem to have, I think. Yeah. Awesome. Very cool. All right, well, let’s dig in here and we’re going to talk about preparing for audit success. And Kelly, I’m going to let you kind of kind of take over here and and I should make this less you introduce yourself.
00;07;04;43 – 00;07;32;21
Unknown
So Kelly is an essential part of our team here at pro shop. And, Kelly, I want you to share a little bit about yourself. We a remiss that we didn’t make a slide just for you, but let’s let’s learn about you a little bit first. That’s all right. I’m Kelly. I am from Michigan. I born and raised, so I was able to really get to know the adverse world of manufacturing.
00;07;32;28 – 00;08;12;13
Unknown
And looking at the automotive, the ups and downs, I decided to specialize in aerospace because I knew that there was going to be a generation that was going to need to retire and who else to pick it up. But my generation. So I started in the industry of the military in defense, making military vehicles for AMG and that’s some other clients, and then moved over to the aerospace world and started working for a company that was a Tier one supplier to the higher ups of manufacturing, including the military.
00;08;12;13 – 00;08;36;46
Unknown
So I moved up from the ranks of a very slower inspector to a quality manager and learned a lot from the experiences I had and then moved into the commercial field. So I am a very diverse and you know, the world, the ISO 9000 world and some other things. So I’m glad to help. Yes, glad to have you here.
00;08;36;47 – 00;09;17;18
Unknown
Okay. Well, let’s talk about audits and I guess maybe what they’re normally like and how we’re kind of changing that are typically when you guys are ready to get certified, there is a process for that. And other stage one audit is usually over the documentation. You have a manual procedures, people that have been trained, the procedures is the words and verbiage that you want to set forth on what your company does, where it’s at, and those fundamentals of setting up your business.
00;09;17;22 – 00;09;54;54
Unknown
Usually there’s an internal audit and there’s a management review which are very critical key features of every audit when the auditor comes to your facility. And then once you’re done with stage one, they’ll go over some, you know, opportunities that they’ll might find is very rare since everything is prepped for you before stage one, Your stage two is basically your work orders, your vendor pose anything that’s your calibration.
00;09;54;59 – 00;10;26;08
Unknown
And then again, if you have any non conformance or any opportunities of improvement, that’s when you clean it up and then, you know, submit to the auditor and you’ll get your stage two down in the certification. So let’s talk for a second about the more traditional process where someone maybe isn’t as prepared there. I guess, you know, let’s put pro shop aside for a minute.
00;10;26;13 – 00;11;05;25
Unknown
There’s is that’s normally more of an education process as well and and the clients or the shop trying to understand what they need to be ready for in stage two is that is that kind of more how that generally goes. But typical process is usually before stage one you have some kind of analysis to make sure that you’re your system and what the standard is requiring are complete and that so once you have that kind of gap, you know, cleaned up and ready for your stage one, the auditor will come in and ask you some questions and go through your system.
00;11;05;25 – 00;11;31;30
Unknown
But typically it’s always been 30 to 90 days between your stage one and stage two to compile evidence and data so that by the time your stage to your management review, your internal audits are finished. So it’s not typical that you would have a management review or those audits just yet because you’re starting your whole system. So it’s kind of like we’re going to find the gaps.
00;11;31;37 – 00;11;52;26
Unknown
Stage one if there’s any opportunities, we’ll give you 30 to 90 days to clean them up and then your stage two will go through the rest of the process. After that, we’ll clean them up. Usually it’s about 30 days or so after that, so it takes six months for some to get certified from the beginning to the end.
00;11;52;30 – 00;12;21;52
Unknown
And so and I’ve heard the were the terms opportunities and majors and minors. Can you just describe those a little bit in the first stage one, opportunities are just things that are need to be fixed. Nothing that’s going to be critical. Stage two is where you get your majors and minors, things that are of your corrective actions that you have to fix in order to get your certification.
00;12;21;57 – 00;12;46;10
Unknown
So it’s kind of some cleanup work. And then stage two is like, did you guys do your homework and let’s see that you did your homework and if you didn’t, we’re going to, you know, have some consequences. And can people, if they if there are minors or majors on a stage two, can people fix those and then submit proof that they’ve done it and then get their certification after that?
00;12;46;15 – 00;13;16;09
Unknown
Yes, they communicate with their auditor. They show them evidence that they have done the improvements from those corrective actions. And then once those are submitted, there is a review process after the auditor has their reports, has all the non conformance is finished, then there is a review board that says, okay, we’re going to look at the company, we’re going to make sure they’re solid and yes, we’re going to, you know, certify this company to get their assets.
00;13;16;14 – 00;13;39;30
Unknown
And that usually takes about a week or two afterwards. Sure. Got it. Okay. And so that in this last bullet point we have here, this was an example. But there’s really if there’s no findings in the stage one, if all the objective evidence is ready to go, there’s no reason why you couldn’t do a stage two really quickly.
00;13;39;34 – 00;14;03;09
Unknown
That’s true. That is true. Typically, a lot of auditors are questioning the fact that they want to see all this evidence. But again, setting up pro shop the way it is. You’ve crunched that number from stage one to stage two because you’re so well prepared. Everything is in the system and it does it for you. Okay. But let’s get more into that.
00;14;03;14 – 00;14;34;35
Unknown
So let’s talk about I guess we’re I sort of read through the slides a little bit better. Let’s talk about what’s hap what what are normal things between stage one and twos? They’re really just basically getting your KPIs ready. So when the auditor comes in, they have a sheet called a process effect is like a paper process effectiveness assessment form, and they have all this information that they need to collect and fill out.
00;14;34;40 – 00;15;01;34
Unknown
And when they fill this out, they’ll, they’ll put in opportunities of things that you kind of need to fix. But the KPIs are what they’re really looking forward on your stage to, to make sure that you’re looking at your sales, looking at your non conformance is if you have any. So it’s a documented evidence that they’re really compiling in that time frame Score.
00;15;01;39 – 00;15;36;25
Unknown
Okay. And tell me about this bullet here. Auditors can interpret things differently. Yes. So in the ace world, they are really forcing the fact of counterfeit product safety, human factors. And the general comes and auditors will push and push and push the fact that they need a procedure for that. Well, interpretation really states that you just need some kind of awareness and monitoring of that.
00;15;36;30 – 00;16;09;13
Unknown
And actually does not dictate this and does not say you need documented retained information. So with that pro shop has done it with trainings. So there are alternatives of things that you can do that aren’t requirements that some think that you must have. Okay. So you could build some training processes around counterfeit parts and make sure people are trained in that signed off on their training.
00;16;09;18 – 00;16;39;49
Unknown
And then that’s sufficient for at least to some auditors that would be sufficient, but others might push back on that a little bit. So you’re so pro shop also has a great way of doing your supplier evaluation and making sure that counterfeit doesn’t come in from the receiving inspection. Well, while you still do have a process built throughout pro shop to support that counterfeit, But again, you don’t need a documented procedure that says this is how we do counterfeit.
00;16;39;54 – 00;17;22;27
Unknown
Some auditors like to see certain things because that’s what they’re used to and come in the new age. There’s different types of mediums. Got it. Okay, very good. Let’s talk about Audit Day itself. So how do how does an audit day go? Well, usually in the past there has been where you’re collecting all these papers and you’re getting ready and you run around the shop and you’ve got people to sign off and you sit in front of the auditor and you have your manual, which is usually a binder, and then you have a binder procedures and you go through this process and you’re looking at all this documentation.
00;17;22;27 – 00;18;10;11
Unknown
Now it’s basically everything is kind of on your company hall and you’re clicking through the modules to find that information and having that all set up to where you have all the answers and questions right there. And one source is basically the EAS, Okay? So by eliminating both paper documents and having things stored in, you know, word documents or PDF files or Excel sheets sort of on your network, it makes it easier and faster to get the answers to the auditors that they are asking for or heaven forbid, you know, a bunch of filing cabinets.
00;18;10;16 – 00;18;40;04
Unknown
And we’re talking both about the sort of procedures and manual and things of that nature and then also the records themselves, because they’re going to ask about records. Right, Right. And when they when the auditor comes in again, he’ll have this form that he’s got to fill out what processes, who is in charge, what are you measuring for your KPIs and all this documented information objectives, And you just kind of go through that checklist.
00;18;40;09 – 00;19;14;48
Unknown
So once he has that all set in one area, he knows exactly what answers are right there. There’s not too much of clicking back and forth. They’re opening a binder key. Okay, So the order will send you the questions in advance that they will be asking. Typically, what happens is your registered body will reach out to you and say, hey, on a recertification, usually it’s within 30 days or if not longer, depending on the schedule, or you will get an audit schedule from any auditor, no matter what audit you’re doing.
00;19;14;48 – 00;19;36;18
Unknown
And then we’ll go over the things that they are going to want to see procedures, documents, and they’re based on the sections of the standard, depends on, you know, what criteria. And they’re just going to start going through the process of like looking at your purchasing and your Q P and then going through the documentation to support that.
00;19;36;23 – 00;20;04;36
Unknown
And then, you know, the evidence. So the outputs of that. Okay. Okay. And then so a first time audit is going to be different than a recertification audit, right? That’s correct. Can you elaborate on the difference between the two? A recertification is something after your stage two, you’ve got your certificate? Yeah, it’s been a year. The auditor is going to come back and they’re going to go over certain sections of the standard.
00;20;04;40 – 00;20;29;40
Unknown
They’re not going to audit your whole system. But the what the things that they are going to always look for is your management review and your internal audits. From there they’ll pick and choose certain criteria as production operations, depending on the section of the standard. Then they’ll break it down to the things that they’re going to want to look at the next following for the recertification in the next following year.
00;20;29;49 – 00;20;58;36
Unknown
They offset that with the other part of the standards and they audit that after that is their third year and they do another full system audit. Stage one is where they’re looking at your information and they’re going to start going through your documentation, clean it up. Stage two, they’re going to go through your whole system, make sure everything’s cleaned, ready, and then give your give you your certification.
00;20;58;40 – 00;21;28;31
Unknown
All right? And I want to drive home this this bottom bullet point here that the this this concept of a zero prep audit and we wrote a blog about that on our last year, I believe, and the the hope and the goal of always being audit ready is not only so your audits, you know, don’t stress and scramble for days or weeks in advance to prep for it.
00;21;28;35 – 00;21;54;44
Unknown
But is it is it safe to say that a company that is always audit ready because they are actually doing the processes, doing the improvements, doing whatever it might be, keeping the records, They should be a more smoothly operating, you know, more well-run company because they’re doing this work and this comes back to the concept of, thank you for putting that in the chart.
00;21;54;49 – 00;22;22;13
Unknown
This comes to the concept of, you know, people get certifications generally because they want to get they want to do work for it for the aerospace industry or the space industry. And that’s a requirement. But there’s also the concept that a company that runs itself per the standard is going to be more profitable, better run, more reliable company in general, and that that’s the real reason to get a certification.
00;22;22;13 – 00;22;55;47
Unknown
And so you have a more consistent, you know, standardized profitable process. And if you’re then doing that and focusing on that as the goal, yeah, you can then, you know, get your foot in the door in aerospace and defense and that sort of thing. But if you’re always behind and you’re not up on your naysayers and your corrective actions and your internal audits, then you’re likely to not actually be keeping up on the processes which are the things you want to run your business more profitably and consistently in general that Do you think about that the same way?
00;22;55;49 – 00;23;23;29
Unknown
Kelly I do. And the standard is really the business practice. You know, everyone talks about quality and it’s quality’s job. Well, the philosophy of quality is, you know, we all take it on. We have certain standards for ourselves, We have a certain quality of a level that we have for ourselves. So it’s not necessarily a quality of manufacturing, it’s the quality of your business.
00;23;23;34 – 00;23;48;20
Unknown
And, you know, the standard sets forth criteria that says, okay, we want you to be better, we want you to have trained employees, we want to have a culture and habits so that you can be a really good supplier, so we can be, you know, dependent on you in certain times and give you extra work, right? Yeah, absolutely.
00;23;48;25 – 00;24;24;30
Unknown
All right. I love it. Let’s get into the culture of audits and auditing here. And this and Chris and Adam would love to have you kind of join the conversation here and because historically this has been a situation where, you know, the shop is is kind of feeling at the mercy of the auditor and its super stressful and they’re not sure if they’re going to pass or they’re just just yeah, it’s it’s it’s a different kind of thing that we’re hoping to kind of help build going forward.
00;24;24;30 – 00;24;53;31
Unknown
So I’d love to have you guys. Yeah. Share a little bit about about this concept and what it was like for you. You want to start us off? Chris Yeah, thanks. Actually, I want to just kind of comment on Kelly’s segment earlier where, yeah, there’s a lot of different ways to skin the cat of getting 80, 90, 100 certified and a lot of companies will do it with paper and forms and then that builds kind of a culture of like, this is non value add.
00;24;53;31 – 00;25;17;48
Unknown
We have to do all this extra work, whereas you know, it doesn’t have to be that way. And that’s one of the great things about going digital is everything is already automatic. It’s part of your process. Instead of filling out a form and filing that form or getting that form signed, you’re just clicking a button on a screen or it’s automatic collecting all the objective quality evidence that you need to pass an audit.
00;25;17;48 – 00;25;50;43
Unknown
So I think going digital really enables that audit ready, you know, position for businesses to be in, which I just think is fantastic. We’re building our business around that in terms of having the culture of audits, I really view it as having being very similar to having a culture of safety, right? You can’t have just like the safety manager at the edge and ask manager responsible for all safety and making sure people don’t get hurt, protect the company from workman’s comp claims and all that stuff.
00;25;50;48 – 00;26;12;47
Unknown
So like it goes down to the worker who’s performing the task in either a safe way or an unsafe way. And so you can’t really just write scripts and procedures and protocols to to embed that People just have to believe that they need to work safely. Well, the same thing is with quality. And to Kelly’s point, that’s everybody’s responsibility.
00;26;12;52 – 00;26;57;38
Unknown
And so when it comes down to the auditing, if you can make that easier and less take that take the temperature down on the anxiety levels for the whole organization, when the audits coming around, it just positions you for success even better. So by having everything digital and running everything through one central platform and the entire business is operating that way, when employees are clicking into a router and out of a router confirming an operation and so on, it just means there’s less gaps that people have to worry about in terms of, I didn’t sign this form, I didn’t fill out this form correctly or whatever it may be.
00;26;57;38 – 00;27;34;16
Unknown
And so I think that actually helps all the employees be more on their game because they don’t have to stress as much, because they have confidence that all of the objective evidence is there to support A that they’re doing their job correctly. Part of the process. And I think that opens up bandwidth for them to answer questions more thoroughly, be more effective in giving the auditor what they are seeking as evidence for the audit instead of them stressing about stuff they don’t need to stress about.
00;27;34;25 – 00;28;00;20
Unknown
So I think Pro Shop is really as a product and the solution has made, you know, the do what you say and do what you or say what you do and do what you say. Yep, almost automatic in most way it’s maybe 90%. So I think that’s really, you know, a key advantage and differentiator between this product and other products we looked at and that I have experience with.
00;28;00;24 – 00;28;28;49
Unknown
Yeah, I was just, hey, I would love to know a little bit of your background of prior companies, what you know, where they did, where you worked, did you work sound like you probably worked in other companies that were certified and, and you’ve done it a different way in the past. Is that true? Yeah. So I’ve been in manufacturing for 25 years and my partner has about 20 years of experience in these types of regulated industries.
00;28;28;49 – 00;29;03;36
Unknown
We’ve been an aerospace defense, semiconductor and turbomachinery a lot of turbomachinery. So these are industrial gas turbines doing power Gen or in the oil and gas industry and I’ve worked for probably four different companies that all have this requirement as a quality manager and two of them responsible for the Q arms. And it’s always just this legacy system that’s been in place for like ten years or, you know, 15 years.
00;29;03;41 – 00;29;29;39
Unknown
And it’s just been it’s just built into this big behemoth of something to manage and it’s just been a pain and making sure people are adhering to it was another challenge, but we always past our audits. It was just a lot of work. And, you know, going into our certification here with with my company, Maverick’s, you know, we sailed through.
00;29;29;43 – 00;30;03;16
Unknown
It was just a nine day difference and experience and wow, okay. What if you had to put, I don’t know, a number to the percentage of time saved or effort, you know, expended to get that certification in the old systems versus the new or even to maintain it maybe. I don’t know. Whatever makes sense to you. Can you have any you have any thing that you might that comes to mind?
00;30;03;21 – 00;30;39;41
Unknown
Was it half as easy? Is it, you know, half the time or effort or something different than that? Well, I mean, going with the Flying Start package definitely helped because I was actually in the process of writing all the procedures before Finding Pro Shop, and I was putting a lot of effort into that. So I know how much effort goes into writing the manual are the standard, and if you don’t use a consultant, it’s even harder because a consultant will actually guide you and say, Hey, try and write it per the sections of the standard.
00;30;39;46 – 00;31;13;26
Unknown
If you don’t have that insight, then you’re just spinning your wheels in a lot of different ways. And then you have to write procedures and then you have to have forms to collect all that evidence. It’s a pretty extensive effort. So to answer your question from a very kind of qualitative perspective, I would say probably it was, yeah, 90% easier using book brochure QMS assurance plan solution.
00;31;13;31 – 00;31;35;49
Unknown
That’s that’s, that’s not what I was expecting, but I love hearing it. Thank you very much. Adam. I’d love to have you here. Here are some of your thoughts about. Yeah, absolutely. I’m coming from the other end of things. I have I have 15 years experience. That’s half my life in manufacturing, but I’ve always been on the employee side of an AC or ISO shop.
00;31;35;54 – 00;32;06;53
Unknown
So I would I’d be the one signing off the line of training. I have no idea where it is. Last minute. Let’s see all this documents been made and remade and re revived. But yeah, I would never, I never really knew the process going on to become an X, Right. So, so going into this you know I had zero clue really and I really didn’t need a s but I wanted to run my business like you all were talking about, you know, with processes and smoothly.
00;32;06;58 – 00;32;35;55
Unknown
But you know, it’s helped Kelly in a fine start package. It was literally a silver platter handed to me. Yeah. You, you shared, you were kind enough to share this this on, on LinkedIn. Yeah. People throughout. It’s the easiest to work. No I mean, luckily with Kelly in my office manager, my office manager has no manufacturing or quality experience and she’s basically running the place with Kelly.
00;32;36;04 – 00;33;09;19
Unknown
So he’s brilliant. Brilliant. Yeah. Yes. You know, so as you know, as a business owner, no, I kind of just said yes to it and it kind of did itself. So it’s been I wouldn’t want to go s if I had to do it all myself. Absolutely not so sure. So I want it very easy. I want to go back on something you said as an employee at a previous company or companies, you would be asked to sign things and and sign off on things when at the very last minute, when they were scrambling to prepare for audits.
00;33;09;24 – 00;33;29;06
Unknown
Yeah, for sure. So every year, you know, it’s sinus training. Make sure all their documents ordered the office was usually a mess. I couldn’t, you know, get them to order tools or get anything out of them. And even even as an owner, you’re talking to other shops, they’re like, no, it’s it’s audit months. You know, we’re going to be slow to emails and we can’t.
00;33;29;10 – 00;34;03;30
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Right. Okay. Well I hope flats sinking in on this the the the significance of what we call the zero prep audit where you can just haven’t come any time. No problem we’re ready. And I do really do genuinely believe a company that’s run that way will be a higher performing company because they’re not missing things and, and and you know, not having their business run according to the standard, which should be more consistent and profitable and repeatable.
00;34;03;35 – 00;34;30;08
Unknown
Let’s talk a little bit about timelines. So Adam and Kelly, can you guys share a little bit about your timelines here? Adam Yeah, absolutely. I went into this thinking it would be a six month process. So with a QMS assurance plan package, you get how many hours of training going? A lot. You can get 60 hours or you can get smaller chunks depending on the type of business.
00;34;30;08 – 00;34;50;31
Unknown
But there are consulting hours that you can purchase for helping you get certified. And Adam actually purchased 60 hours because I was doing a little bit. So we’re kind of working on this together and seeing how this is going to be. But, you know, but it was it was well worth it. But I thought would be a six month process.
00;34;50;31 – 00;35;09;50
Unknown
I think me and Kelly, we spent an hour a week together and there’s a lot of work in the background on top of that. But now we kind of set this up so much quicker. And then by the time we got comfortable us, we were late to schedule someone to audit us. So that pushed it out. Another month And then stage two is going to be December 11th.
00;35;09;50 – 00;35;35;46
Unknown
So I really started working with the auditors timeline after the initial set up and training. So if you had if you kind of knew what you knew now and had got on the audit schedule as soon as possible, what time frame do you think you actually would have been on? We were more consistent with it. It could have been easily a months initial set up and then as soon as they could ask the second time.
00;35;35;50 – 00;36;09;59
Unknown
So probably a month or two. Easy, right? Okay, very good. I probably would have done it a lot sooner also. Sure was that easy, but out is the fear of the unknown. Like Kelly says. No, really? Yeah. That’s super common. I mean, we I definitely have talked to shop owners and leaders who are just genuinely afraid of like what trying to do us and like because they hear horror stories from all across the industry about how hard it is and how much time it takes and you won’t have time to do anything else.
00;36;09;59 – 00;36;31;01
Unknown
And and that low level of cost on top of your business just to maintain it and a lot from other shops you know they don’t want to mess with the paperwork or the expense at the time but well there’s no paper first of all, and the Times cut down quite a bit. So almost 90% according to Chris. So yeah.
00;36;31;05 – 00;36;53;20
Unknown
All right. And Chris, let’s talk about your time frame. This is pretty remarkable. Yeah. And you have this in mind. So if you as part of your answer, you had said you were starting to write all your own manuals and things and then you found pro shop and kind of maybe you can kind of go from there. Okay.
00;36;53;25 – 00;37;15;36
Unknown
Yeah. So we knew that this was part of our business plan. I was a manager of the welding program at a Defense Prime here in the States, and I decided I wanted to go start my own company and I was going to do it in a very specific way. And part of that roadmap was we had to get as many 100 certified as fast as possible.
00;37;15;36 – 00;37;46;46
Unknown
So I was actually starting to write this while I was still part time. And so around the May-June timeframe, I was doing this and then I actually got a quote from one of my vendors for a job, and at the bottom it said Pro Shop and they were using Photoshop. I’ve never heard of this. I look it up and we had already been evaluating like six other solutions ranging from Sage and E to Ore and a bunch of others.
00;37;46;51 – 00;38;18;22
Unknown
And yeah, we we down selected to pro shop based on our research and just looking at kind of what our requirements were for our, our business and what we needed the the ERP system to do for us. We weren’t even thinking about vacuums being rolled into that. We were going to be going with another third party to a mass system because that’s all I was aware of at the time.
00;38;18;27 – 00;38;55;12
Unknown
But through the research, yeah, we signed in in July and from there we immediately hit the ground running. In fact, I was poking the pro shop sales team like, Hey, when can we get this started? You know, they’re like two weeks. I’m like, No, I want it faster. So when we eventually got signed up and began our kind of training slash configuration of the system for our business, we I had already called my registrar had them lined up and we had some back and forth with the registrar.
00;38;55;12 – 00;39;16;45
Unknown
I was actually the one pushing back on us saying, you know, typically we require our clients to have three months of work experience and work orders on the floor, you know. So they were really pushing back on me and scheduling the audit. Yeah, but, you know, registrars are businesses. They want to make money. I said, Look, I’m paying you.
00;39;16;48 – 00;39;40;31
Unknown
Come on out. And if we fail, I’ll pay you again to come out again. So and so they agreed and they came out and here we are by the end of October certified. So it was a very accelerated timeline for us and very smooth. I have to say. But. But you signed up for pro shop before you even officially opened your doors for business.
00;39;40;31 – 00;40;06;11
Unknown
Is that what I’m seeing here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, we opened in August. Yeah. Yeah. As well. One of the get on board quick. I love it. I love it. Yeah. And to, to both of your points, these timelines could have been even shorter if the auditors weren’t as busy and. It took a while to just get on their calendar and get on their schedule.
00;40;06;15 – 00;40;34;48
Unknown
So I have been not running this webinar quite quick enough. We’re a little behind schedule. Let’s jump up here. Kelly, I’d love to have you maybe lead us off here and talk about some tips. So auditors, again, assume that they have or need to see certain things, and that’s not necessarily true. And getting them to see the paperless system.
00;40;34;53 – 00;41;03;00
Unknown
Well, you know, comparing what they’ve seen in the past to what pro shop, you know, satisfies that they have seen to be like, okay, wait, I need to really have it this way. And that’s not necessarily true. Again, like Chris said, there’s multiple ways to skin a cat. And so, you know, moving that culture of it’s only my way or the only way, that’s not necessarily true.
00;41;03;05 – 00;41;32;44
Unknown
On contacting certification bodies. So yeah, it would be nice if once pro shops gets out there and more and more as certification bodies get used to it and see it and the auditors start to see it get more comfortable with it, you know, once they say, Hey, we have pro shop, that should automatically say, I can have stage one on Monday, I can do a stage two on Thursday, and we’ll mail you your certification by Monday, the following.
00;41;32;49 – 00;42;17;43
Unknown
So, you know, it’s it’s supposed to help and we’re supposed to strengthen the industry. And having pro shop makes you a better supplier because you are looking at these things as a habit. You’re already doing that and you don’t even know it. And I love, Chris, your analogy of safety. I think that’s a great analogy of exactly how it needs to be embedded down to the daily operations of people doing their job in a safe way, in a quality driven way, and understand getting the others to understand that’s how it is, probably is one of the, I guess, major sort of education points of that’s just pervasive in the business is how we run it.
00;42;17;43 – 00;42;44;09
Unknown
We don’t need to or because they probably know the people scramble at the last minute and sign things off. And, you know, because they probably come in to companies that aren’t already and and or they haven’t seen. One thing I’ve heard and maybe one of you could confirm this when an order comes in and all your documents are still at the same rev as they were a year ago, probably an indication you’re not actually using the system to improve.
00;42;44;13 – 00;43;12;35
Unknown
Is that is that a dynamic that happens? It certainly begs the question and auditors start poking a little bit deeper into that. They may find that, yeah, okay, you guys just you’ve had one customer and they haven’t changed and you haven’t changed and but they do dig and they’re going to determine that or, you know, how conformance is to report.
00;43;12;40 – 00;43;39;25
Unknown
Right? Right. Awesome. All right. Let’s keep on moving here, but a few more tips. Kelly, do you want to take these ones? Well, I would like to point out that the new standard for asked will be out in the next couple of years, probably by 2025. And in the end portion of it, they’re going to start looking at environmental carbon footprints, how things are going to happen.
00;43;39;25 – 00;44;14;18
Unknown
And having pro shop already starts that paperless system of your carbon footprint on the next round. So is something to really consider. And then, you know, being able to if you have someone that needs a training, you have all the options to where they can do some of the training on their own. You know, the technology of again, setting up your system, your audits are already internal, your management review is already going in the habit.
00;44;14;23 – 00;44;40;18
Unknown
You’re you know, you’re starting to do these things without even knowing. And then before you know it, you got it. It’s all set up, You’re ready. And you were like, Yes, I got this. I’m proud of my company. You know, we’re running at, you know, top notch, 95% on time for deliveries. Our sales are through the roof. I mean, things are moving seamlessly, so.
00;44;40;23 – 00;45;11;18
Unknown
So that’s how you set it up? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And to that point, we have and I don’t know, I love to hear Chris and Adam, you know, we definitely have clients tell us that Pro Shop has become a significant part of their sales process where when they when they have the opportunity to present to a new prospect, you know, they really lean into this is our business processes, how we run our company in a really efficient way, in a very robust KPI driven way.
00;45;11;32 – 00;45;36;47
Unknown
Have you guys done that at all with your clients? Yeah, 100% of their time at Adam. Thanks, Chris. Every time we have a customer go through the shop will point out immediately how there’s no papers except up for travelers and packing slips. But, well, it’s computers in every workspace and more easily more organized than our customer coming in.
00;45;36;50 – 00;46;03;56
Unknown
So we’ll tell them what orders they have with us when they do. You know, previous pricing, things like that got a lot of it. And you yeah, I would just echo exactly what Adam said. It is a it’s a key part of our branding, and that is we work smarter, not harder. And we’re the next generation of, well, shop, you know, manufacturing shop.
00;46;03;56 – 00;46;24;10
Unknown
We’re not the old crusty bob, the welder, you know, dirt floors and everything’s smoky and dirty. We’re very high end, very premium. And a part of that is our business systems. And so I’ve had the same experience that Adam’s had in terms of customers coming in, and they’re just blown away because we’re leaps and bounds ahead of where they’re at.
00;46;24;15 – 00;47;12;05
Unknown
And so I think they want to partner with companies like us who have gone fully digital, have embraced, you know, the industry 4.0, as it as it’s called, you know, going digital and connecting everything and having a digital thread throughout the manufacturing process. Pro shop really is a key enabler and in doing that and in terms of 80, 90, 100 from the contract back through your entire process and what you’re delivering and having that closed loop of traceability with all of your Okay, the objective quality evidence really, you know, makes it pretty automatic.
00;47;12;05 – 00;47;44;01
Unknown
It’s kind of hard to make some errors, I think, unless you’re, you know, just uploading the wrong documents and so on. But it does a great job tying together that digital thread. All right, cool. Well, we’ve already kind of talked about this already a bit, but any additional insights you guys want to share about what it’s been like working with Kelly and and our team and and partnership in general?
00;47;44;06 – 00;48;11;30
Unknown
Yeah, pro shop in general is it’s been stress free and pretty easy. You know I’ve worked in other shops and this was an easy easy yes for shop As far as ERP systems go I’m not even realizing at the time what it could grow into as far as, as and all the quality system and trainings. I know what I wanted to run the company like that, but I didn’t realize how easy it could be and, you know, affordable and, you know, great support.
00;48;11;39 – 00;48;43;10
Unknown
You guys act like a small company, but it’s very quick with the emails and yeah, it’s been been very good. Thank you, Adam. Appreciate it. For us, there was some uncertainty, I would say, but still confident that it was the right solution. But pro shops really. And once we started configuring it and integrating it, it was very, very evident how machine shop centric and focused it is.
00;48;43;19 – 00;49;26;47
Unknown
And we’re not that we don’t have a sense of email or lathes or anything fancy tools at all in our facility. So to customize it to meet our specific needs for the welding application and compliance with all of the codes and requirements. But I can’t say enough good things about the support the teams had. You know, I opened up with this earlier to the architecture of Pro Shop, being able to create a welder continuity log, being able to generate our welding procedures, specifications as internal documents and embedding them into the router operations.
00;49;26;51 – 00;50;10;52
Unknown
Walter Continuity log is a big one because usually people, companies will manage that outside of any system or they’ll go by a third party solution that is very expensive and not that great at best. So the customization, the flexibility, the support that we experienced has been phenomenal. And I’ve had welding engineers from Defense Prime’s come through and I’m showing them our process like this is how the water, their welding procedure, this is how I know that the welder is correct with their qualification in their process and they’re just blown away.
00;50;10;52 – 00;50;44;50
Unknown
They’re like your ERP system does all this for you? my God, does a grasp. And yeah, it’s just really a great, great tool to have. And you got to you said, you said in the prep for this that you are also getting your NED cap by the end of the year. So yeah, yeah. We’re scheduling that cap and then also pre has a kind of companion accreditation to the NAD as a medical certification for a welding process.
00;50;44;57 – 00;51;04;41
Unknown
So we’re applying for that at the same time. So I have both of the checklists now I just have to go through and make sure we’re collecting all the gaps, but we’re going to get that for sure. I’ve had Mad Cow previously at other companies that I’ve managed and it’s we’re quite familiar with the requirements and what’s expected.
00;51;04;46 – 00;51;45;56
Unknown
So I’m confident it’s just a matter of scheduling. I’m paying them and they come out and see us. We do have one, maybe two other shops, weld shops that use pro shop that are nad cap. So I don’t know, maybe you guys should get together and compare notes. So awesome. Well, thanks guys. I appreciate that. And just a few things just in general about, you know, about working with Pro Shop, you know, our our machine shop and well, I would say so we might the company that Kelsey and I am my partner started with definitely machining centric.
00;51;46;00 – 00;52;19;40
Unknown
We also were an engineering firm so we were as certified for design engineering as well and did lots of assemblies and things like that, but still very much machining centric. But we of course we were as certified for more than ten years before we ended up selling the business. And so just all the workflows kind of to the point that some of you have made, if you just use pro shop the way it was designed, the way it was intended, the way we think about running a business, you kind of will be largely client or largely compliant to the standards.
00;52;19;40 – 00;52;43;09
Unknown
So and we certainly do think it’s a much easier way to go than keeping it outside the system. And it sounds like our marketing and sales team needs to do a little better job if you didn’t know how much we actually could do, we need to make sure we’re making that clear up front. And then, Kelly, if you just very quickly tell us about the internal audit services that we’re offering.
00;52;43;13 – 00;53;06;42
Unknown
So being a lead auditor certified and a certified Quality TEC, we do offer the services of auditing. So a lot of our clients that I have helped certify are 1 to 2 man shops. And, you know, large companies that do ask, don’t think that a one person shop can be certified, but that’s not true. It only takes one person.
00;53;06;47 – 00;53;50;33
Unknown
And so with those being so small and limited resources, pro shop has someone on board that can help support you in those quality, you know, divisions of auditing, getting you prepared for your recertification, coming in and helping consulting. How can I do some things better? What are some tips that, you know, I could try? And so the services, you know, again, reach out to your sales are put in this case ticket and you know if you need an auditor again 30 days before your system recertification say hey, they reach out and say I need an audit of my whole internal audit system, great.
00;53;50;33 – 00;54;22;36
Unknown
I can do that and then send an appeal. And again, we’re talking about internal audits, not we’re not a registrar, we’re not a certification body. So just helping you prep for those. So and then again, we’re behind schedule. And I do want to share one little video trailer that we have for a project that we just finished. But very quickly, Kelly, in less than a minute, tell us, what’s the client you just shared with the possible shortest possible timeline that you that you have ever heard of?
00;54;22;41 – 00;54;52;59
Unknown
ERVIN So he had a stage one on Monday. The auditor was there for about a half an hour. No more than 45 minutes. Said, All right, I’ll be back after lunch. He said, okay. Never heard from the auditor. He had to call his auditor. He said, I’ll be back on Thursday. Auditor came back on Thursday, spent another half an hour, gone through all the evidence, said, All right, I’m I see you’ll have your answer on Monday.
00;54;53;04 – 00;55;15;26
Unknown
So I have their cert. So a week after stage one? Yes, sir. Yes. Okay. That that’s got to be a world record. Maybe we should call Guinness. Okay. So that is that is fast. I see a note from Bosco in the notes or in the final stages of process getting certified. It’s been great. Kelly’s helped a lot. Thank you, Bosco.
00;55;15;26 – 00;55;35;09
Unknown
Appreciate that. Yep. Kelly’s awesome. All right. We’re going to share a video here. So we just went through a process with another client, actually documented this in sort of a video documentary style. So this is just and Kelly was a part of this. She’s not in this trailer, which I, I will get another one made by the video editor.
00;55;35;09 – 00;55;59;38
Unknown
But she was she and Michael on her team were critical in helping this client get their certification. So let’s take a look at this and we’ll be releasing this full video in the next few weeks. I don’t normally have to call customers and see if if they have work for us. So I was on the phone every day calling and trying to dig up more work, start thinking about some of the opportunities that have come up in the past.
00;55;59;38 – 00;56;31;41
Unknown
But they they ended when the companies found out we didn’t have quality certifications such as 80, 90, 100 with switching over to pro shop in the last year. I figured who better to help us do the this 9100 than you guys? I knew you had experience in it and you had the module already set up for it. To make parts that go on airplanes, you have to have this piece of paper that says you have a quality system that meets all these requirements.
00;56;31;54 – 00;57;04;00
Unknown
So to get the certification, we go through a couple audits calibrated and verified for both. Just a formality at this point till the cert arrives. But looking back on it now is I think it’s very, very smoothly and is not as much work for me having you guys help us implement it. Yeah. So if you had to do this from scratch, what do you think the process would have been like?
00;57;04;05 – 00;57;29;47
Unknown
Honestly, I probably would have given up on it. All right, so that is T.K. machine. Jeremy was kind enough to let us come into his facility and film process of getting certified, So it was a really fun project. We are going to launch a poll and then get into the Q&A immediately. As we do that, where is our poll?
00;57;30;04 – 00;57;55;04
Unknown
there you go. Thank you. All right. So a couple of questions in the Q&A that we will get to as the thank you in advance for doing this poll. Are there certification bodies that you know of that are where a pro shop or previous auditor preferred paper? So we’re looking at switching Not an uncommon. I think one of you is even saying the auditor asked you to mail them your quality manual.
00;57;55;08 – 00;58;03;45
Unknown
Was that you, Chris, or someone else? That was me. And you print it out and mail it. We told them now we can email it.
00;58;03;49 – 00;58;32;57
Unknown
That is so funny. Yes, we definitely are starting to collect and keep sort of a database, if you will, of certification bodies. So I know that was an anonymous question. So please reach out to us if you do want some names and we can certainly share those with you. Thank you for that. And then Phil asks, How is pro shop planning for updates when they ask for 100 revises?
00;58;32;57 – 00;59;16;20
Unknown
This should be challenging for people that have made modifications to the QMS assurance plan up. They started this with their own system. Yeah, good question. I mean, there’s there’s different types of changes obviously like the asked anyone to form just is changing rooms now and we’ve updated pro shop to be compliant to the latest I think it’s a revised version of that form but when the entire standard does change, I think our strategy right now is that companies that want to get the update to the standard, we would publish that into their system as a draft revision and it would be incumbent on them to kind of go through or maybe Kelly could be hired to
00;59;16;20 – 00;59;41;03
Unknown
help consult with them on, you know, what what it was what it currently, you know, is moving to and the changes that they made to their own system as a part of that. So so and I if I could piggyback off of that, usually the certification bodies give you a timeline or a grace period of when you have to get that, you know, up to that standard.
00;59;41;03 – 01;00;01;14
Unknown
So it can be either by your next audit, it can be to the next year depending on when your certification or recertification happens. So there is a timeline, there is some ease. You don’t have to hurry up and rush. You know, just like the 91 hour to form. It’s being pushed from the OEM level and everyone needs to be read to it by January.
01;00;01;19 – 01;00;30;43
Unknown
Knowing these time frames pro Shop is proactive about getting this information to our clients in a timely manner because we understand, you know, the severity of being compliant. Got it. Thank you, Kelly. I appreciate that. All right. Well, we are at the top of the hour, maybe even a minute more, depending on which clock you’re looking at the I will leave the poll open for just another few minutes, another few seconds maybe.
01;00;30;48 – 01;01;03;44
Unknown
I don’t see any other questions coming in. So feel free. Has Oasis ever Oasis? I know. I’ve heard of Oasis. I don’t know, Kelly. Do you? Yes. What’s the question? As Oasis ever been fixed that you know of? It’s still under construction. That’s the same system message that I always get. I know that Adam had some huge problems trying to get in and get that fix and get that registered.
01;01;03;48 – 01;01;35;17
Unknown
It is a very irritating process. I know that they’re still trying to smooth out the bugs, but again, you know, it is quite, you know, an upgrade for them. So. Okay. Do you have an audit checklist that is user friendly? Is that like what the auditor might use as a checklist and maybe another version internally? So I love the Oasis website and the IQ G is all where you need to get your information.
01;01;35;22 – 01;01;58;34
Unknown
The audit form that they use is from there. It’s called the payer. You can pull their audit report and look at what their process is and how they do it. They even have all kinds of information that I agree is free and I support going on there and trying to get all your information on it because it is huge and it’s where the OEMs get their information.
01;01;58;39 – 01;02;23;24
Unknown
Okay, Very good. All right. Well, let’s close down the poll. it’s already been shared. There you go. Thank you for everyone on the back end as Sarah and Abra. All right. We are definitely out of time, but thank you, Adam. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Kelly. I appreciate all of joining us today and spending your time sharing.
01;02;23;29 – 01;02;43;06
Unknown
And yeah, thanks to the whole audience for joining today. Hopefully this was useful and you got something from it and we’ll see you all on the next one. And thanks again.
