John Shegda with KMM Group

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

MD&M West, industrial innovation, medtech automation, manufacturing challenges, KMM Group, John Shegda, high tolerance grinding, contract manufacturing, supply chain, AI in manufacturing, difficult parts, NASA project, medical devices, aerospace, manufacturing industry.

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Hey, this episode of industrial talk is proudly brought to you by MD&M West and the incredible news and brews team. MD&M West delivered big medtech automation, packaging, plastics and design all came together under one roof, the innovation, the energy, the conversation, it was everything that makes this industry extraordinary. I was on the floor, capturing the stories, the breakthroughs and the leaders who are shaping the future. Thanks for tuning in and celebrating the people driving industrial innovation. Industrial talk powered by MD&M West and the news and brews team.

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Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's

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go all right once again. Welcome to industrial talk. Thank you very much for joining the number one industrial related podcast that celebrates industry professionals all around the world. You are bold, brave, you dare greatly, you innovate, you collaborate. You're solving problems each and every day, that's why we celebrate you on industrial talk. You are the heroes in this story. We are broadcasting, and we are a part of news and brews broadcasting from MD&M West, here in Anaheim, and it is a collection of problem solvers, and we're right on the floor. We're looking out there. There's just a sea of people and a sea of solutions and technology and innovation, and you're saying to yourself, Scott, how can I join if you're not here this year, you need to put this event on the calendar. And the reason why you need to put this event on the calendar, you get to meet great people like John Shegda. He's the CEO of KMM Group, and we're going to be talking about John, we're going to be talking about KMM, we're going to be talking about whatever comes to my mind. And make that happen. Let's get cracker with the conversation.

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Hi John, how you doing? Scott,

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I can't complain. You've been sitting over there. I didn't know that. And then all of a sudden, you know, we're chirping. And then all of a sudden we realize, well,

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you're there. I didn't know, see, I don't know who

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you're the talent. You're supposed to be running the thing. So, you know, we're,

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that's right, I'm the talent. Yeah,

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me, Hey,

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are you having a good conference? Yeah,

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yeah. This is always a great conference coming here. This is year 17 for me, shut up. It's the truth, really, yeah,

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you've seen some changes that's

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to attend. It is, have you looked at the site map? When you go out to the thing, it looks like a battleship or aircraft carrier.

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I leave that to my, to my wonderful marketing director, and sit in

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good you should look at it because it's impressive. I was, I was showing some client. I said, Yeah, this is what would be. Holy moly, I didn't know that. But anyway, it's always fun. Typically, I'm in the salt mine, like I am now and but normally when you walk around, you get to see someone, it's like you could do that. I didn't know you could do that now. Yeah, it's really cool stuff. All right, before we get into the conversation, let's give us a little battle for one, one on, on who John is, and then we'll dive into km

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05:51

Yeah, it's a great way of giving you a sort of stomach upset and a headache. It's all rewarding, and it's all any and, and you get to meet great people, yeah, just really sharp, innovative people.

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Well, you know, I read up, I read a book. Someone, someone gave me a book, I don't know, maybe 15 years ago, called smart people should make things, and it's the total truth. It really is, yeah, it's, it's really true. I mean, it's, that's where you get great innovation from. So, yeah,

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you do, you do. It's good stuff, all right, KMM. And let's, let's dive into that. What problems are you solving?

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08:31

Okay, I'm looking at the back of your card unlocking the science of manufacturing, and it's trademarked.

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There are Amy, my director of marketing is, don't even think about using do not use it. Pay me a quarter.

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Yeah, barely so man, through and I said, Oh, TM, oh, there you go. All right,

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tell me. Tell the

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listener about what is a difficulty? A difficult manufactured part. What is that? What does that look like? What give me something that you've done that was like, that's pretty tough, but we did it.

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Want me to tell you a medical device, one? Yeah, I want, I want you to just tell me, anyone, anyone I, you know, put a little meat on this. Here's the here's the most fun. Don't violate the trade. This happened last year, okay, right? This happened last year, okay, and this was not a medical device one, but we're, we're, we're, we're tasked with, we're, we saw a print that came from NASA to make a shut up very, very complicated component, we have it in our booth over there if you ever want to come take a look at it. But it was a very, very complicated and extraordinarily tightly tolerance part. So what I mean by extraordinarily tightly tolerance we're measuring in, like, the millions of it. Inch on it and on that, there were a bunch of different diameters that all were on different center lines. So basically, there's just, think about, you see an eccentric shaft or something, you're right, yeah, there were five different eccentricities, like all completely different on this shaft. So this is, this is a part that NASA put out for bid. We were literally the only ones to bid it and and no one, no one else wanted to try to make it, because we had to hold the eccentricities within this millionth of an inch. And it was going into a compressor that is being tested to go to Mars and complete the water loop, meaning they're, going to take hydrogen and oxygen, compress them and make water. So this was a key component to that compressor, and they couldn't find anybody make it. So we, we decided we'll take it on. We like, we like to try that. And just cool factor wise, right? You know, it's like a super cool factor thing, yeah. And so we, we get down to the final we had four out of the five. I mean, perfect, like, unmeasurable difference, right, right? And one of them was off by about 20 millions of an inch, 20 millionths of an inch. So, like, if you understand what, 20 off work. So if you take, if you take, if you take a a piece of paper or a hair, and you divide it into 150 equal sections, that is the difference. Okay, so and so we called up cat NASA said, Look, this is what we have. We have four out of the five, and we're showing them what we had. And and NASA goes, we don't even know how you're measuring that. Like, it'll be fine. Just send it, you know, like, so, so this is, this is this is what we do, right? This is, this is our. This is our. What was the material we made out of? It was a, it was a heat treated stainless steel. Wasn't anything goofy on the materials, just the the way they tolerance. The part

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always fascinates me, too, is when you get, you get requests, and this is what we want to make, and it's, it's just it's never been made before, and we designed it, and it has to be this way because of whatever we're doing. That to me, is incredible, that it's one of a kind, yeah, and they design it.

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So if you, if you go through our shop, I love that. But you go through our shop, right, and you, you at any one time. I could we have about 120 machine tools, 120 people or so, 120 machine tools. I could probably pick out anywhere between three and 10 projects running at any one time that we are the only ones that were able to take the part niche so, and a lot of our med device, we're about 60% med tech. And, you know, we obviously do work for NASA and space exploration, some aerospace work and some other things. But, yeah, such a soccer space Yeah, I love the aerospace stuff and the space exploration stuff is fun. But I'll tell you what the impact that we feel like we have on an ongoing basis in med tech is, is it's it plays to the want to be a doctor in me a little bit, feel like we're sending parts around the world that are saving people's lives or or helping them live a better life. So those, I take great, you know that I take great pride in in us being able to do those. And I'm, I'm, I'm part engineer. I grew up as you know, better be the chief engineer of, you know, one of the companies, or a couple of the companies. But you know, I'm kind of stepping out as CEO. I don't get to do that, don't I don't get to have as much fun in that space as I used to. But it's quite

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see I digress, because I get the picture. He got yourself quite the niche, which is pretty interesting. What is sort of that most unique material you had to work with. I'll give you the sort of the background in our family. We have some CNC folks, okay? And then we would always have the conversation. And he would come in and say, check this out. And we'd have a conversation around, what's it made out of? Well, it's made out of, you know, whatever.

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Anyway, what, what? All right, you want to hear the Yeah, super crazy. Yes, I do want to hear it. There's a here's a story for you. Yes, I want a story. This is going back. This is going back, I don't know, 10 years. And guy drives up said, Can you we were grinding some, believe it or not, little stone core samples for somebody, little, tiny ones, right? Little quarter inch diameter stone in a but it was a cylinder, and they needed it ground. They needed them sized to a very specific size tolerance. The stone didn't know what they were for, but it happened to be for an oil cut. Happening for Schlumberger technologies, which is they find where to drill right exactly, and so they say we're going to come down. We got something to talk to you about. So this guy comes down, drives down, pulls up in inner Mercedes, takes a briefcase out, lays a briefcase on my desk, opens up the briefcase. In the briefcase, there are three giant pieces of stone, two inches in diameter, about 10 inches long. And he says, We need all these three ground to the same exact size. And what's going to happen, you're going to give them back to me. We're going to put them in a centrifuge, put them in a submarine, go about like

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And we're going to test something that's going to run there for like, months, and we're going to see if there's oil, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and so, so we had to grind these stone samples. And he basically, very, again, very difficult to do very, very, I didn't know if it was going to explode when I put it in the machine, because it was so big, and so I was like, a little bit of trepidation going into it, and he said, Oh, by the way, I asked what I should he goes. I said, it, are you going to come back and pick them up? He goes, No. He says, just ship them. He goes, whatever he goes. I said, Are you sure he goes, Yeah. He says, Whatever you insured for, it's not gonna be enough anyway. So like, so he goes, Yeah, he said, Oh, and by the way, we need all three, all three. And if you screw one up, they're all, they're good. So no pressure, right? And so we had to. So that was, that was probably the craziest material with the with the stone that we had to grind. So it's basically they were core samples from the ocean floor off the coast of Madagascar. Is what they were.

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Yeah, wow. So I bet you never heard that.

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I know I'm all buckled in. I can't believe I now I'm a better person because of you. I am. I've never heard anything like that. That is amazing.

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That was kind of cool. So there's a cool project. Okay, now, now that we're

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talking neat stuff, I want your take on what the future looks like. What do you, what do you see in the world of your business the future. What do you what's peaking your interest outside of, you know, ground up stones and look, there's a

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teacher, God man. That's that's a wide open answer, but

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so far, you're nailing it. All Out of stories.

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yeah, you keep going music, it's no big deal. Yeah, so, because I'm hanging on every word, but I

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with, with where we are, with having a lot of capability, and in different areas, that's where we can we can take that and use AI as a tool, but maintain our, our, you know, work, base,

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winner, winner, chicken dinner.

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Either one, you're the first president talked about supply chain. I've always been a supply chain guy talking about supply chain. You're absolutely spot on.

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That was a great conversation. It was a great conversation.

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Hey, how do people get a hold of you? John, just, just for the sake of hearing stories.

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Yeah, you can tag me in on it and reach me on LinkedIn and and also find our Group, Cam M Group on LinkedIn. We are always posting great articles and videos.

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You're awesome. Yeah, shut up. And this was a great conversation. His name is John.

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Said, Did I get it shake the Shegda, can see I knew you had it right the first Did you see what I told you? When I get in a conversation on the podcast, I always just like, I can't read anymore. Now you were absolutely came him in KMM Group, that's the company you need to reach out and their trademark, unlocking the science of manufacturing. It's all trademark. It's it makes sense. I love it. You were absolutely spectacular. John Doug, and I like that conversation. All right. All right. We're gonna have all the contact information for John out on industrial talk. We're with news and brews broadcasting from MD&M West, and we're telling the story. And if you're not here, you're not talking to John, but if you were here, I'd say you need to talk to John, because he's got mad skills his company does. All right, we're gonna wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned. We will be right back.

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You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

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