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Sometimes machining companies tell Graff-Pinkert they have long running, lucrative jobs supplying parts to the D.O.D., and it always has seemed a little mysterious to me. What are these parts they are supplying to the government? How does a company get to become a supplier to the D.O.D.?

Is supplying parts to the U.S. Government a good idea for a small-sized or medium-sized machining company?

I got some answers from today’s guest on the podcast, Mike Topolewski Jr. Mike is Vice President of Sales and Operations at Perigee Manufacturing Company in Detroit, Michigan.

Perigee is a three generation, screw machine and CNC shop with a specialty in fasteners. The D.O.D. has been a significant customer of theirs for decades.

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Noah Graff: What was the catalyst that got your company to start supplying to the Department of Defense?

Mike Topolewski: We have been making defense components almost for our full existence—55-plus years. We did indirect (work) prior to being certified as a defense contractor.

Becoming a direct defense contractor can be a very daunting path. It’s not straightforward, so to speak. There are multiple steps and multiple departments you have to go through to get certified. The one caveat is we’re a fastener precision turn component manufacturer. The way that we do business can be very different than a service provider to the Department of Defense. 

Graff: How do you get certified to be a direct defense contractor?

Topolewski:  It’s a multi-step process. 

It was complicated. A lot of bureaucracy. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily difficult. It was a long process. There’s quite a bit of paperwork and background checking to confirm we are viable corporation?

The first steps are getting registered with federal government, getting issued a cage code, so to speak. I believe the acronym stands for Corporate and Government Entity.

Our code is 1X4X7. When you bid on contracts and you are awarded contracts, that is public record. It’s available to anybody to see which entity was awarded what.

Graff: What is a PTAC (Procurement Technical Assistant Center)? How can they aid people in doing work for the D.O.D.?

Topolewski:  These are agencies that I believe are backed by the federal and or state government to assist contractors with existing contracts.

These contracts are very long. They’re not one or two pages. The government is so big, and there is tremendous bureaucracy. The PTACs can be a very helpful resource.

Graff: What is the bidding process like to get government contracts?

Topolewski: The bidding process for our industry is typically done on a bid board.

There are several procurement boards that the government uses to disseminate the solicitations. You need to have the credentials and the access to these portals. You go in there and you see what the government is looking for, and you review these solicitations, which can be longer than the contract sometimes.

Then you enter your bid via the portal.

We’re bidding on contracts that are typically for discrete number of parts with a specific delivery date requirement. 

Graff: What is an example of a quantity that your company would bid on? Obviously, you’re screw machine people, so you’re making a lot of parts.

Topolewski: We are. But we have eight CNC machines which are running low volumes as well. Back during the war in Afghanistan or war in Iraq, there were times when we were making very small quantities and they were immediately sent out overseas to the troops.

Graff: Tell me about your bidding strategies for getting D.O.D. jobs.

Topolewski: Once you enter your bid you are notified via email or via the portal if you’re awarded the business. You’re also notified if you aren’t.

You can see previous contract history for that particular part. You have a general idea of the market value, maybe not the current value, especially through the pandemic and supply chain issues, but you have an idea if you’re going to be somewhat competitive.

There are too many things out there to bid on. You have to be selective. You have to know what your strengths are, what you’re competitive at, and go after that.

Graff: What are the greatest challenges to supplying parts to the D.O.D.?

Topolewski: Obviously, there are the obvious barriers to entry to doing defense work. Getting registered, going through the various steps. Many companies don’t have the patience or the wherewithal. 

Graff: So you’re saying there’s less competition, which is an advantage.

Topolewski: Possibly yes. And for those reasons, but also the length of these contracts and the requirements that are forced upon the contractor. That contract has many clauses that may have costs associated with them to our company.

One obvious difference is packaging requirements. If you’re bidding on these contracts, they don’t just want them in a box and shipped to the depot. They have to be sometimes individually bagged.

And some of these bags are expensive, and they have RFID enabled labels and barcodes. Cybersecurity is another (issue). We are required to have certain cybersecurity measures in place in order to bid on these contracts.

Graff: What are your favorite and least favorite parts of supplying the D.O.D.?

Topolewski: We make a fair amount of parts that go into various vehicle platforms within the military. We

take pride in supporting and protecting the war fighter. These parts are critical to their safety.

Another positive is that federal government pays very well, and they pay on time. And if they don’t, you get interest. 

Graff: That makes sense. They want to be able to rely on their suppliers.

Topolewski: The defense industrial base in this country is critical to the national security of this country, and they take that very seriously. 

If these defense contractors go away and especially critical ones then we have a real issue.  It’s important.

You may have noticed that I often talk about friction on this podcast.

That’s because everyone has to fight friction in business—and there is A LOT of friction in the manufacturing business.

Friction from time consuming stuff. Friction from stuff being too hard to figure out. Friction from stuff we’re not qualified to do or just don’t want to do.

My guest on today’s podcast, Constantine Ivanov, founded a business called DigiFabster that alleviates friction for manufacturers, providing features like instant quoting, a CRM, and payment platforms that are specifically tailored for different manufacturing types.

I loved our conversation. Along with talking about DigiFabster, Constantine had some fascinating insight about entrepreneurship from the perspective of a Russian immigrant.

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Constantine (Const) Ivanov founded DigiFabster, which he describes as “Shopify for custom manufacturing.” The platform addresses critical friction points in manufacturing by enabling machine shops to provide instant quotes and streamline customer relationships. Traditional quoting processes can take days, and shops often struggle with basic operations like invoicing and customer communication.

The manufacturing landscape has evolved significantly due to companies like Xometry and Protolabs raising customer expectations for rapid service. While top-tier shops previously relied on core customers and could be selective with jobs, the democratization of manufacturing has redistributed opportunities to smaller shops willing to take on diverse work.

DigiFabster analyzes 3D models for complexity, geometry, and manufacturability, enabling instant quotes. Unlike marketplace models like Xometry, it empowers individual shops to maintain direct customer relationships while modernizing their operations.

Many shops struggle with business administration, marketing, and differentiation in a market where companies often appear identical to potential customers. DigiFabster addresses these challenges by automating administrative tasks and improving customer experience, allowing shops to focus on producing quality parts. The platform represents a shift toward more efficient, customer-centric manufacturing operations that can compete effectively in today’s market.

Born in the USSR in 1987, Const began in web design and branding before entering manufacturing in 2013-2014 with his first machine shop in Moscow. He moved to the United States in 2016 on an O-1 talent visa, bringing a unique perspective on business and innovation.

He suggests immigrants often have an advantage in entrepreneurship because they’re accustomed to living with uncertainty. While he emphasizes he left Moscow during peaceful times for better opportunities rather than fleeing hardship, this comfort with uncertainty shaped his approach to business challenges.

Const offers an interesting perspective on American business culture, noting that many Americans have been in comfortable positions for so long that they’ve lost their edge in dealing with uncertainty. He contrasts this with the immigrant experience, where uncertainty becomes a constant companion in navigating business, family, and immigration challenges.

His background in design and software, combined with manufacturing experience, allowed him to see opportunities for innovation that might not have been obvious to industry insiders. He emphasizes that success isn’t just about having good ideas but about being able to “become a solver” of any challenge that arises.

Const’s reflections on success and happiness reveal a pragmatic approach common among immigrant entrepreneurs. Rather than focusing on creating something extraordinary on a “planetary scale,” he sees the importance of enjoying the process and finding success across multiple areas of life – family, health, and business. This perspective may be influenced by his immigrant experience, where success is viewed through a more holistic lens.

He attributes much of his success to luck combined with persistence, a common theme among immigrant entrepreneurs who recognize both the opportunities America provides and the work required to capitalize on them.

Question: What part of your company’s operations would you love to automate?

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Today’s interview is an old favorite. It’s a story about a young entrepreneur and his father producing minuscule parts with no other employees than themselves and Dan’s wife.

On today’s podcast we continue our season about Swiss machining. Our guest is Dan Rudolph, co-owner and founder of Rudolph LLC. Rudolph LLC produces medical parts as small as .1 millimeter on Citizen lathes. The company has only three staff members, Dan, his wife, and his father, but Dan says he has no plans to hire employees and the company continues to grow.

Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast, or listen with Apple Podcasts or your favorite app.

Dan describes Rudolph LLC. The company produces medical device components particularly for eye surgery. It manufactures mainly stainless steel and titanium components on Citizen Swiss lathes. The company has eight machines and plans on adding several next year. It also has various secondary and finishing equipment, as well as Universal Robots. (3:00)

Dan says when the company started he and his father gravitated toward smaller parts that required smaller sized equipment. They had no employees, and the company started in a 900-square-foot shop. Now it has a second 900-square-foot room available for machinery, and a second floor for finishing equipment. (3:50)

Dan talks about his career path. Growing up, his father was a supervisor for a Swiss department at an eye surgery OEM. In the evenings he ran a small foundry that did brass castings. Dan often tagged along with his father to the foundry as a kid. He attended Penn State for industrial engineering and worked in foundries after college, but decided that career path wasn’t what he was looking for. He and his dad had been talking about starting a medical Swiss shop together for a while because his father had knowledge of the industry and good contacts from his former company. Dan says since he was young he had an affinity for the elements involved in running CNC Swiss machines—a lot of moving parts, math, and computer programming. (5:30)

Dan says his dad prefers a supervisory role as well as handling quality and secondary operations, while he loves running production and setting up machines. (9:45)

Dan says the smallest part Rudolph LLC runs is .1 millimeter. The company does a lot of work with thin-walled parts (.002” thick). They drill holes as small as .007” in diameter in stainless or titanium. (10:40)

Dan says often he sees working on small parts as “imagining a half inch part but in a smaller world.” Though, he says often with very small parts the bar stock can break off in production. He says when he is working on very small parts he breaks up the work. He will turn a few features and then stop the machine to see what’s going on. Sometimes he will program the sub-spindle to grab the part just to make sure he can find it. He says when the parts are in the sub-spindle you sometimes have to use a razor blade and fish them out. He says for a lot of the parts after the sub-spindle picks them off he opens the collet and then an air blower puts them into jars or tubes. Then he evaluates them using a vision system or other measuring system. (11:30)

Dan says Rudolph LLC’s shop is located on what used to be a farm. The barn has been replaced by two 900-square-foot garage-type buildings. The company started in one of the garages and then when it grew took over the second garage and connected the two. Then they built second a floor on top. His father’s house is located across the driveway from shop. (14:30)

Dan talks about his wife leaving her CPA job to join he and his dad at the company. She has been shadowing Dan’s father so she can eventually take over his role as he gets closer to retirement. (16:00)

Noah asks Dan, how he can “replace himself?” What happens if he needs to step away from the business for some reason, or go on vacation? (17:45) 

Dan says when he and his dad founded the company they decided they didn’t want to be “people managers.” He jokes that people at other shops warned them against the complications and headaches that come with hiring a lot of employees. He says that he and his dad prefer doing the actual production work. Automating with Universal Robots for secondary operations and Swiss machining that can finish an entire part enable the company to function and thrive without requiring extra manpower. He says in 2021 the company is not taking on new customers and instead trying to improve the work it does currently. (18:45)

Dan says one of the main things he wants to improve upon is reducing the rough edges on parts. He wants them cleaner with less burrs and loose material. Increasing his quality consistency will mean spending less time at the microscope troubleshooting. (22:15)

Noah asks how Dan how he is able to come up with new ideas and solutions if he is continuously busy producing parts. Dan says being spread thin is a constant obstacle, but even so, he and his father do not want to hire help. He says if they can perfect the work themselves they won’t need to hire anybody. He says his wife has been a huge addition to the company because she knows how he thinks, so she can help solve problems without creating a new problem of people management. She takes on some of the work, which has smoothed out the operations such as shipping and running the Universal Robots. (22:50)

Noah asks Dan if he has advice for someone else who wants to start small shop similar to his. Dan says he can’t fathom starting a shop without at least one other person because with two people you can divide the work between your strengths and weaknesses. (25:15)

Dan says he sees his company’s mindset as a game to see how much he and his dad can do within their constraints. He says having limited space is advantageous because walking around a big shop takes time. (26:00) 

Dan says something interesting he learned last week was his research on various ways he can renovate his home’s deck. He says he has spent time searching on Instagram for photos of work done by contractors. (28:00) 

Dan says social networking on Instagram has been beneficial for him. It has given him a peer group of other people in the machining world, which he lacks in his own 3-person company. He says his Rudolph LLC has even gotten some customers from Instagram. (29:30)

Why would anybody buy a CNC multi-spindle for $2 million? Or $3 million for that matter?

My guest on today’s podcast, Richard Kingsbury, has the answer. Richard is Managing Director of the Kingsbury Engineering Division, England’s INDEX distributor.

In this interview, Richard gives a history lesson of screw machining. We discuss how you sell a $2 million dollar CNC multi-spindle. Most importantly, we talk about how a machining company can make lots of money with these Ferraris of multi-spindles. I know, I should call them Porsches as they’re made in Germany.

In any case, INDEXs are so choice!

If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

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In 1945, a bankrupt Germany was forced to pay reparations to the allies in the form of intellectual property and capital equipment. INDEX’s products and designs were assigned to BSA Tools, a British company, with rights to sell these machines for 10 years (1945-1955)

During this period, George Kingsbury (Richard’s grandfather) ran a subcontract shop that used both BSA-built INDEX machines and original INDEX machines. He quickly recognized that the original INDEX products were of superior quality. Sensing an opportunity, he developed a plan to become Index’s distributor when BSA’s rights expired in 1955.

To demonstrate his commitment to INDEX, George sent his son (Richard’s father) to work at INDEX in Germany for nine months. When INDEX’s sales director visited the UK, George showcased his facility and then made a bold proposition over lunch: if INDEX would grant him exclusive distributorship rights for the UK and Ireland, he would immediately place a purchase order for 30 cam automatic machines, with 120 days to pay. The sales director couldn’t resist such a proposition, and the deal was struck. George returned to his office to inform his two sons that they had 120 days to sell 30 cam automatics. It was the beginning of Kingsbury’s relationship with INDEX, which continues nearly 70 years later as the second-longest-running Index dealership in the world, after only Japan.

Today, Kingsbury has evolved into a diversified enterprise with three divisions: engineering (machine tools), timber, and property, employing 350 people and generating approximately $140 million in annual revenue.

In our interview Richard made a great analysis of cam-driven multi-spindles like Wickmans verses modern CNC multi-spindles. He explained that while Wickman machines were excellent for high-volume commercial parts, they required highly skilled operators who could fine-tune them with copper hammers—a dying breed in today’s workforce. In contrast, INDEX’s CNC multi-spindles represent a technological leap forward, with each spindle independently driven and controlled.

One of INDEX’s key innovations is their patented drum indexing system. Rather than continuously rotating in one direction (which would tangle the wiring), the drum advances five positions forward and then reverses for the sixth position. This solution allows for precise synchronization between operations and eliminates the need for slip rings used by competitors.

The benefits of modern CNC multi-spindles are substantial. Richard demonstrated this with a complex stainless steel part that previously took 4.5 minutes to produce on a twin-spindle machine but now takes just 20 seconds on an INDEX multi-spindle. This dramatic improvement in cycle time helps justify the significant investment these machines require. As Richard puts it, “You’re taking a gun to a knife fight” when competing against shops running conventional machines like CNC Swiss or single-spindle lathes.

While I agree with the Richard’s view that cam multi-spindles have fewer people qualified to run them nowadays, from my viewpoint as a used machinery dealer selling Acmes, Wickmans, and Davenports all over the world every year, I don’t see cam multi-spindles as completely obsolete in today’s world market. I know companies around the world, including in the U.S. making big money with cam multi-spindles that cost as little as $30,000. Many of those companies have a young workforce with the talent to run the older technology.

When asked about his sales approach, Richard revealed that Kingsbury’s sales team has moved away from traditional feature-and-benefit selling toward a consultative method inspired by Sandler training. Rather than leading with technical specifications or price, they focus on understanding the customer’s problems and business goals. Their most successful sales are to entrepreneurial owner-managed companies that can make quick decisions, rather than corporations requiring extensive approval processes.

A particularly interesting insight came from Kingsbury’s discussion of their selective approach to sales opportunities. Rather than pursuing every lead, they carefully qualify prospects through detailed conversations about their needs and motivations. As he explained, “If somebody asks us for our opinion, we’ll give it to them. We’ll try and understand their business. And if we think we can help, we will. And if we don’t, we will say we can’t.”

The interview concluded with Richard emphasizing the importance of building genuine business relationships rather than being seen as “sniffy salesmen.” His approach focuses on becoming a trusted advisor who understands and addresses real business challenges rather than simply pushing products.

Question: How have you made money using CNC multi-spindles?

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Today’s podcast is Part 2 of our interview with Dave Thuro, second-generation owner of Thuro Metal Products. In this episode, Dave discusses his growth philosophies. He believes in aggressively acquiring as many job opportunities as possible, but then saying no to most of them. The company tries to acquire at least two long term accounts per year that will bring in monthly sales of $50,000 to $100,000.

Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Dave Thuro.

Dave also discusses his hiring practices. He believes in hiring the majority of his employees at the entry level and training them from within the company. The company’s 56 person workforce happens to be 50% women.

Question: How does your shop go about acquiring new clients?

We are going back to the archives this week with an interview from our first year of the show!

Great story and great company.

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Today’s podcast is part one of a two-part interview with Dave Thuro, second-generation owner of Thuro Metal Products, a successful job shop in Long Island, New York. The business produces parts for a variety of industries, including aerospace, fuel injectors, HVAC, bearing and linear and, more recently, optics and lighting.

Scroll down to listen to the podcast.

We spoke to Dave about his equipment choices, focusing on Swiss automatics and multi-turret CNC lathes. We also discussed his father’s journey from Yugoslavia, living in an old army barracks in Munich, Germany, as a refugee following World War II. He became a master machinist in Germany, before immigrating to the United States at the age of 23 and finally starting a machine shop of his own.

Question: Which piece of equipment in your shop is your favorite?

I’ve interviewed a lot of interesting business coaches for this podcast, and all the coaches had one thing in common. They focused on coaching a company’s owner or management, rather than working with everyone at the company.

But my guest on today’s show, Tim Drinkwater, founder of Accurate Machine Products in Janesville, Wisconsin, hired a coach to be available for all eight of his employees. He says the coaching has provided his people with helpful guidance professionally and personally and has had a positive impact on his own personal growth.

The interview really resonated with me as I personally have a number of coaches including a life coach, a podcast coach and a coach for building my LinkedIn presence.

Along with discussing coaching, Tim talked about his company’s product line and his success finding new business on LinkedIn.

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The inspiration for Accurate Machine Products’ coaching initiative came from Tim Drinkwater’s personal experience with Score.org, a nonprofit organization providing mentorship to small business owners. After working with Score mentors for about a year, Tim recognized the value of having someone to talk to and provide accountability, which led him to explore ways to offer similar benefits to his entire staff.

To find a suitable coach, he and his team interviewed several candidates from a coaching licensing organization. They selected a coach who was personable and easy to talk to, without a specific focus or platform. The chosen coach aims to help individuals sort through their life goals, making her approach more aligned with life coaching than traditional business coaching.

The coaching sessions are entirely voluntary for employees, and Accurate Machine Products covers the cost, viewing it as an investment in their staff. Interestingly, Tim himself was not among the first to sign up, admitting he was initially hesitant due to the vulnerability required in opening up.

The program is structured around monthly 30-minute phone sessions for each participant. The coach insists on a high level of confidentiality, to the extent that Tim is not privy to information about who is participating or what is discussed in the sessions, unless an employee voluntarily shares this information.

Tim told me that his coach has helped him work through various challenges and has recommended books like “The Coaching Habit” by Michael Bungay Stanier. This book has provided him with tips on listening more effectively and helping others incentivize themselves, skills he finds useful both in managing his shop and in his volunteer work with high school students.

While it’s difficult to quantify the direct impact of the coaching program on the business, Tim has received positive feedback from employees who find it helpful. He views the coaching as a way to invest in his people and improve their overall well-being, which he believes will ultimately benefit the company.

Rather than implementing more traditional team-building exercises or corporate culture initiatives, Tim sees individual coaching as a way to improve the overall work environment by helping each employee grow personally and professionally.

He summed up this philosophy at the end of the interview, telling me,

Question: If you could hire a world-class coach to help you excel in any aspect of your personal or professional life, what area would you want to improve?

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This week on Swarfcast, we’ve been thinking a lot about some of the exciting tech that we saw last month at IMTS. One thing that always stands out to us are the robots. As our recent podcasts have touched on the topic of AI, we thought it would be fitting to reshare an interview we did with George Konidaris, co-founder of Realtime Robotics. A new podcast is on its way soon, but in the meantime we hope you enjoy this one again.

Seems like right now every podcast is doing an interview centered around artificial intelligence.

But I waited until I found the right story, one that was truly relevant to our audience in the machining world.

Today’s guest on the podcast, George Konidaris, is the cofounder of the startup, Realtime Robotics. He is also a professor of Computer Science and the director of the Intelligent Robot Lab at Brown University.

Right now, programming a robot arm to perform a repetitive task typically requires a robot integrator to program where every joint of a robot should go. It’s a ridiculous and tedious process.

But with Realtime Robotics’ AI technology, you can instruct a robot to do a task and you don’t have to tell it a zillion steps explaining HOW to do the task.

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Noah Graff: Explain your company, Realtime Robotics.

George Konidaris: Realtime Robotics is a company that does real-time robot motion planning. We focus on how a robot can automatically generate its own motion. Typically a robot integrator programs every aspect of a robot’s motion in order to accomplish a repetitive task. This means deciding where every joint of a robot arm should go. With our system, you can tell the robot where it needs to put its business end. This is where I would like you to weld, or I would like you to pick up the object over there. We compute the rest of the motion for you.

Konidaris: The majority of our installations are programmed using a PLC. It used to be that you would have to set every joint on the robot to a specific value.

Now instead, you can send much higher level commands to the PLC.

It takes less training and less effort. We can reduce PLC programs that are often hundreds of statements long to single digit statements in many cases. You get out better efficiency, and we make sure there are no collisions. You don’t have to run what you’ve programmed and eyeball it to make sure it doesn’t collide.

Konidaris: Yes, we think of robot arms the way most people think of printers, which is that they’re all peripherals. Our job is to provide drivers for those peripherals. To you, they should look just the same because they have similar functionality. You don’t have to go learn the programming language associated with one robot brand. You just plug it in.

Konidaris:  I think the analogy is very apt. One way that I would think about the difference though is that ChatGPT is a top down of intelligence to start with language, which is very high level, and symbolic and abstract.

But what’s interesting about robots and what’s interesting specifically about robots and AI is that is not yet where the challenges are. The challenges are much lower level. Just moving through space, just doing perception, just generating motion.

We’ve automated so much stuff because we’ve had to deal with the fact that robots are so physically stupid.

Konidaris: One way to think about cobots is they have two distinguishing features. One is that they’re very easy for a person to program by manipulating the robot. The other one is that cobots are safe to have around people.

One way to think about how that’s been done is they’re light and weak and compliant. By “weak” I mean it’s not going to knock your head off if it hits you.

(Cobots) are not as fast, they’re not as precise. In many industries where you really need throughput, you can’t apply a cobot because it just doesn’t have the performance that you need. What we’re hoping to do is to substitute a different technical solution. The robot is not going to hit stuff because it knows how to not hit stuff.

Konidaris: (Yes), the integrator is doing a couple things.

They’re designing your work cell for a performance characteristic or a meter specification. That’s a mechanical engineering skill that requires a professional. Also, they’re choosing components like the end of arm toolkit, the particular conveyor belt, and the PLC. They are integrating those into the work cell and writing the logic that controls them.

But then the third thing that (integrators) often have to do is spend a lot of time hand designing the robot motion. In particular, if there are multiple robots in the work cell, they need to try and coordinate the multi-robot motion ahead of time so that nothing ever collides.

And that’s where the real talent comes. We’ve looked at use cases where it takes 13 weeks of engineering just to get the multi-robot coordination right. We can drop it to one (week) because in our case, that last part, you just plug the robots into the same box and they never hit each other.

Konidaris: Yes, that’s right. They have severe throughput constraints.

In many cases, the cost of a single robot isn’t anywhere near the cost of extra cycle time, so they’re happy to pay to add extra robots.

I think a typical statistic we saw is adding a single robot only gets you an extra 25% of throughput speed up—as opposed to the 100% theoretical, which no one ever gets. But with our system you can see more like 75%.

So you can get much more of the win using the extra robot because they can pass pretty close to each other and they’re mutually cognizant of that.

Question: How have you used robots in your machine shop? Or, how would you like to use them?

I encounter a lot of friction in my work. Too many obstacles get in the way of me doing the things I need to do and the things I like to do.

I know all of you out there have friction in your work too, and if you’re in the manufacturing business you likely encounter friction when you have to achieve the necessary quality to be ISO certified.

Today’s guest on the show, Adam Marsh, has a company called Ledge Inc. that guides manufacturers through the ISO certification process.

Getting ISO certification can be an overwhelming undertaking, but like so many challenging and complicated tasks, if you just have the right guide at your side to lead you through, it’s not nearly as difficult as it first seems.

Reducing friction is Adam’s specialty. In addition to talking about quality, we talked about how he reduces friction in hiring new employees, creating a skilled manufacturing workforce, and even figuring out what to make for dinner.

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Noah Graff: Give me a brief overview of what your company does.

Adam Marsh: We help manufacturers meet quality management system requirements. If someone has ISO 9001, we help them manage and achieve those certifications. We also help them implement new quality systems.

I’ve been doing this since 2011, supporting my father who started in 1987. We have a team of 11 serving about 250 companies across the country. Our target is small to medium manufacturers who struggle with this. They might not have the internal knowledge to meet customer requirements, especially when selling to major OEMs.

Noah: What are the main sectors? It’s not just machining, right?

Adam: We work with a lot of machining companies, but also medical device, environmental certification like ISO 14,001, aerospace, injection molding – you name it. We also have a food safety division with experts in that field.

Noah: ISO has always seemed complicated and intimidating to me, with all these numbers.

Adam: We don’t make it easy. We have so many abbreviations that if you’re not in the industry, it can be hard.

I don’t feel like quality people have historically done a great job of helping manufacturers simplify this. That’s what my company does – we take complicated standards and turn them into something you can actually deliver day-to-day.

They’ll never follow or keep up with it. The idea is to say what you do and do what you say. If you say too much, you make it really hard on yourself.

Noah: You mentioned one of the associations you belong to has an apprenticeship connection, so companies don’t have to have their own personal apprenticeship program.

Adam: I’m past president of our local manufacturers association, called the Manufacturers Association of South Central Pennsylvania.

Manufacturing wages have really gone up. It’s a great alternative to college at this point, but our schools are filled. Our local tech school is full; they’re turning kids away. So we built this alternative where we’re able to teach classes and embrace that old apprenticeship model. People work at the company during the day, take classes at night at our Manufacturers Association facility. After a two or four-year apprenticeship, they’re able to get state papers and we sponsor.

Noah: How does that compare to an apprenticeship created by a certain company?

Adam: You have to build your own program and get it approved by the state. It takes years, and the state doesn’t work particularly quickly. To attract young talent, they all want education and a pathway forward. Our association has those apprenticeships already built, and companies can essentially jump onto our program.

Noah: I see environmental regulations as a complicated issue. What do you think about the complaints that when Democrats are in power, regulations get ridiculous?

Adam: I haven’t seen as much on the federal side environmentally that is hurting our customers. I’ve seen more problems on the local side, often related to water systems.

It’s not that they don’t want to do the right thing. They would be okay doing the right thing, but they don’t even know what the right thing is. And they’re afraid to ask questions for fear of being fined.

Noah: We met on LinkedIn. You often have one on one conversations with several people in a week?

Adam: Yeah, I have a decent LinkedIn following. I reach out and they reach out to me. I get a lot of work from LinkedIn, people looking for ISO support. 

I focus on good content if I’m going to post anything. I don’t do the “post a day” thing, but I try to connect with people. If they’re in quality or manufacturing, I’m absolutely up for connecting.

Noah: Yeah. Well, you knew where I was going with this.

Adam: It’s going to end up with something. You did the podcast on serendipity, right? I look back at how I’ve grown my business, and it’s a lot of that. We put ourselves out there to meet people. I have a new customer in Ohio who sent me a very cryptic message on LinkedIn. I said, “Sure, I’ll jump on a call.” And now I’ve got a new project.

Noah: Do you have any final advice for people with manufacturing companies or people in quality?

Adam: The factory of the future is the real deal, and we have to embrace it now. Whether that’s Industry 4.0 – we have to get out of our own way and start using technology to remain competitive. I love it on the maintenance side – predictive maintenance. Can we start putting sensors on things to know when they’re going to go bad?

We just spoke to my team today. I told everyone to get an account for whichever AI they want to work with. I just want them messing with it and figuring out how it can help in the day-to-day, because that’s going to make our team strong. Some use ChatGPT. One of my teammates said today he’s using Copilot. We’re all kind of all over the place. I want to know what works out there.

Question: What processes give you the biggest headaches as a manufacturer?

Transcript was aided by claude.ai

If you have not already listened to Part I, you can find it here.

After serving in the Navy SEALs for nine years, Bill Berrien retired from the military in 1999, ready for a new chapter in his life. He attended Harvard business school where there were six other SEALs in his class.

After graduating from Harvard, Bill worked as a Six Sigma Blackbelt at General Electric Health Care, which brought him to the Milwaukee area in 2002. Rather than climb the ladder at a large corporation, Bill’s ambition was to eventually acquire his own business. 

Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dB_nzFzt

After working at G.E., Bill worked in private equity in the health care field to gain experience and earn the capital needed to purchase a company. Bill often advises people starting their careers to take a similar path to his. First, get a job at a large established company like G.E. that has opportunities to get training and exposure to different areas. This can help people figure out their interests and strengths, which may pay off in future endeavors. He says that today, running Pindel, he uses a lot of the principles he learned at G.E., such as root causing, critical thinking, and numbers orientation.

After he finished working in venture capital, Bill spent a year searching for the ideal business to purchase. He looked at around 120 potential companies, about 75% of which were related to manufacturing. In the end, he chose Pindel, a successful 75-year-old family company in precision machining with about 80 employees. He liked the company’s customer base and ownership, and he saw areas in the business that he believed he could improve and grow. 

Bill says when he first came to Pindel he didn’t have a set game plan. He had no prior experience in precision machining, so the first thing he did was take the time to learn the business from the company’s former owner, Mark Pindel, who stayed on several years. 

Bill believes he gained some respect and trust from the company’s employees because he was a former Navy SEAL. He jokes that he did not tell anybody he went to Harvard, and some people at the company might find that out for the first time if they listen to this podcast.

When Bill purchased Pindel it was primarily comprised of good old Acme-Gridley multi-spindles and some CNC equipment for doing secondary operations. Bill has kept the Acmes going, but he has also gotten big into Swiss, so he can run complex parts complete for the aerospace and medical industries. He has kept the company’s production in the medium volume range, with runs of 1,000 to 1,000,000 pieces.

There were only three old, underutilized Swiss machines when Bill arrived at Pindel. He realized that the company was outsourcing its most complex parts and saw expanding the Swiss machining department as a way to bring more work in-house. The company bought new Tsugami Swiss machines to run formerly outsourced work, and there was still capacity leftover for more Swiss work. Many of the parts that had been blanked on multi-spindles and finished on CNCs could was put on the Tsugamis to machine parts complete. 

Pindel’s cam multi-spindles are still used for making parts for the industrial sector. What is noteworthy about the company’s multi-spindle department is that the average age of its operators is around 31, rather than the stereotypical multi-spindle operator age that is close to retirement.

Bill has found that medical, aerospace, and defense customers prefer a “pure play” supplier for the CNC components. They don’t want a supplier that also runs Acme-Gridley parts. 

Meanwhile industrial customers don’t want costs associated with expensive CNC equipment that raises part prices. To solve this issue, Pindel incubated a new company called Liberty Precision dedicated to customers for CNC parts.

Since Bill bought Pindel 10 years ago, he has observed some similarities between advanced manufacturing and the Special Operations community. Both are composed of small, highly cohesive, trained teams enabled by advanced technology. They both strive to do outsized things—to punch above their weight. 

Under Bill Berrien, Pindel has taken a page from the military with its Pindel Professional Development program. The program has six levels of multi-spindle machinists and six levels of CNC machinists, four levels of quality technicians and four levels of industrial maintenance. Each level incorporates Tooling U classes, shop floor qualifications, and NIMS credentialing. Such a comprehensive training program allows the company to hire for attitude and train for skill. 

To encourage new recruits to choose the multi-spindle track versus the CNC track, the first three levels of multi-spindle machinists are paid more than the first three levels of CNC machinists.

I ended the interview, asking Bill one of my favorite questions, “When you think of happiness, what does that mean to you.”

Bill explained a scientific concept called “freudenfreude,” which means taking joy from other people’s good fortune. This is the opposite of the more well known concept, “Schadenfreude,” which means taking pleasure in other’s misfortunes. 

Bill takes pleasure from others around him succeeding.

Question: What did you learn in college that helped you in your manufacturing career?