Peyton Ford with norelem US

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

MD&M West, industrial innovation, mechanical engineering, Norelem, Peyton Ford, standard parts, design engineers, manufacturing, automation, packaging, plastics, News and Brews, U.S. subsidiary, brand visibility, customer-centric.

00:00

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 med tech, 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 and M West and the News and Brews team.

00:47

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. All

01:05

right, once again, welcome industrial professionals, and welcome to Industrial Talk. Thank you very much for joining the number one industrial-related podcast in the universe that celebrates you. Industry professionals all around the world, you are bold, you are brave, you dare greatly, you innovate, you collaborate, you're solving problems each and every day. That's why we celebrate you on this podcast. You are the heroes in this story. Once again, we are broadcasting from MD&M West, and it is brought to you by those wonderful people at Informa. We are part of News and Brews and telling the story of manufacturers. And if you're not here, if this is not on your calendar, if this is not on your schedule and you're not here, you're missing out being and hanging out with the cool kids of manufacturing. You need to be here, so put this on your calendar for next year. You will not be disappointed. Do you know why you will not be disappointed? You get to meet people like Peyton Ford, Norelem is the company, and we're going to be talking a little bit about what they do. Let's get a Kraken.

02:02

Hey, hey, Scott. Thanks for having me.

02:04

Thanks for being on time.

02:05

Yeah, absolutely.

02:06

I'm always happy when somebody's on time and and and chirping manufacturing. There's nothing wrong about that.

02:14

Yeah, you know my favorite part of that introduction is that I can go home and tell my kids that I am in fact cool because Scott Mackenzie said so.

02:21

You are cool. Yeah, you gotta be. I mean, come on. Don't you don't you just wander around? I'm not. I'm not saying you just say you know you're dazzled by what you guys do, but really just dazzled by some of the the innovation and technology that exists out there.

02:35

It is. It's really amazing to kind of walk through and see what what some of these companies do and and just really the technology that exists,

02:41

and it always amazes me when I think there's a market for that. Exactly, I didn't even know that existed. I didn't know that that was a problem that needed to be solved.

02:49

Yep,

02:50

yeah, no, it's it's all good. And because we're here at MD&M in Anaheim, this thing's about the size of a large battleship. It

03:00

is very impressively large. Have you have you

03:02

been to the other areas?

03:04

I have made it about halfway down in that direction so far, and I'm hoping to get further today.

03:09

Yeah, see, that's a noble goal. I like that.

03:12

We'll see. Did you get

03:13

your coffee this morning?

03:14

Not yet, but that's well, that's not true. I had my first coffee. I haven't had the rest of the coffee.

03:21

My coffee's over there. It's at a distance. I can't. I'm just looking at

03:24

it,

03:24

coveting it. Are you having a good conference

03:27

so far? It's been really good. We've been really excited with the the folks that we've been able to talk to some existing customers, some new customers, which is or potential new customers, which is always really exciting, and it's just been really inspiring to see the just the volume of folks around that are so interested in how they can drive their business forward.

03:47

Do you do you have any stats on how many people are here?

03:51

I personally don't, but I can say that it is at least a lot, just from my observation.

03:58

Thank you very much. It's a lot. It's it's backed up by science. Yeah, it's a lot. Exactly. All right. Before we get into the conversation, we need to know a little bit about who Peyton is. Give us a little background on who you are. Yeah. So,

04:09

you know, thank thanks for asking. So, for the last couple of years, my role has been the director of U.S. sales for for Norm. And so, Norelem is a is a very interesting story. So it's actually a family-owned company from Germany. It's over 60 years old, and and has a really impressive history in Europe. And and two years ago, actually, just about exactly two years ago, the decision was made to start a U.S. subsidiary, and I was actually the first hire. So my role for the last couple of years has been to build the Norelem team here in the U.S. which has been a really exciting challenge and and really interesting. So my background before that, I spent about seven and a half years in commercial vehicle component manufacturing. Was a tier one supplier to kind of the big class eight. OEMs, and actually started my career in operations. So I always joke that I I started in operations before I moved to the dark side and came into sales.

05:12

Yeah, but yeah, here's the deal with sales: you need it. It's all great if you. It's wonderful you have the technology and the innovation and all of those, you know, swirly, swirly, wonderful, eye-catching solutions. But if nobody's buying it, it doesn't matter.

05:26

That's 100% true. And I always joke that you know, the the best salespeople at least understand or have a background in operations, so they know where the dragons are.

05:37

There it is. Okay, we can wrap this conversation up because I'm a I'm a better man because of our conversation. Give us a little 411 on Norrelem. What what what do you guys do?

05:47

Yeah, so Noral M globally is a supplier of in German. I'm not going to be able to pronounce it correctly, but it translates literally to standard parts. But I thought so. It's a

05:56

French name.

05:57

So it is a French name. So it was purchased by the German family at some point in history past.

06:04

I got on on your in this parking lot of progress. I got dumped by a speed bump, and I just needed clarification. Go back to where you were.

06:15

Yeah, no, no worries. So in English, we would we would kind of more call it mechanical engineering components. Yeah, and so our our value proposition for customers is really our focus exclusively on mechanical engineering components, and so our mission in life is to support people who design, build, or maintain jigs, fixtures, and machines. So you know, my kids have a book at home, and it's a book of machines, right? And one of the pages is the machines that make machines, and so I always tell them that you know that that's what we do is we sell the components for the machines that make the machines.

06:54

Give me an example of what you're talking about. Let me just sort of paint that general use case of just help people understand what you mean by that.

07:03

Yeah, so it can be as simple as when you go to the gym, and when you're adjusting an incline bench, you have to pull on an indexing plunger. So an indexing plunger is a standard component, and so obviously that's a very not necessarily industrial use case, but there are plenty of machines in industrial use where you need an indexing plunger, or you need a spring plunger. Which is, if you think about it, the top of your closet door, right? There's that little ball that when you close it, it indents so that the door doesn't just swing open and closed, and so again, that's not an industrial use case, but that's a really simple way of. Those are kind of what what some of our articles can do, and so obviously over 130,000 of them. Our mission is to be customer centric, not product centric, and so really what that means is we want to be able when customers design with our products because all of the CAD data for all of our products is available for free on our website. What we want to have is partnering with mechanical design engineers in their design projects for jigs, fixtures, or machines. That it's not okay. I need this part tomorrow. You know, I'm I'm designing a jig, and it's due in three months. I need to get my bill of materials over to procurement in four weeks so that they can plan the deliveries, and then we can install in whatever timeline it was. I said at the beginning four weeks, six weeks, whatever it was. Yeah. But really partnering with those folks so that when they design, they're not having to change their design materially to use what we have. Rather, we have enough selection that it that it allows them to find the right solution for their people, plant, and process.

08:54

Okay, so so I'm a company, and I'm I'm interested in your solution, but you give me the the ability to be able to design that solution, and and it's backed up or supported by your organization, so that it it removes the frustration, what what what speeds things up.

09:16

Yeah, absolutely. So if you what's hold hold

09:19

it, let me back up. What's the problem? Are we solving? What's what's what's the thing saying? Nah, that's the problem. We're solving that problem.

09:25

Yeah. So a really kind of really prolific example is right. If you if you think about what does an engineer do, or not an engineer, but let's say a mechanical problem solver, right? Right. A lot of times, people who have to solve mechanical problems, the stakeholder asking them for help gives them little to no guidance on how they can actually help them. So, for example, the example we use in our booth, and we've got a little a little we call a hook. It's a stud about that long, and we've got a what we call a quick acting star grip on it, and I can kind of explain. Yes, you do. You need to. What happens is right. So an operations person comes in, and to the engineer, they say, "Our tac time on station three is three minutes, and they need to be 45 seconds. You're the engineer. Figure it out. So if I'm an engineer, I then have 387 different ways that I can solve this problem. But if I waste three hours of design time, it costs me my time in frustration. It costs the company money. There's an article that exists out of the box, right? You can just buy it off the shelf. It's repeatable. You don't have custom components. Interruption here, real quick. Article.

10:34

What do you mean by that? Of course, just a component. Just any. Just so in this

10:38

instance, it's a it's a little quick acting star grip. It's about yay big, about yay tall, and the threads are such that it slides down the stud, and then it you can tighten it at the bottom, but you don't have to turn it the entire way down the stud. And so in this specific application, right, if it's a a welding jig that really needs that, you know you can really reduce the takt time by just dropping this thing and spinning it right. And rather than the engineer having to come up with some custom solution, spending a lot of time figuring it out, what we go to customers and talk about is you're the engineer. You know your people, plant, and process the best. Here's 130,000 Lego blocks that you can use to find the right solution for kind of your situation and your application.

11:26

Can I just talk to you and say, "Gosh darn it, this is rattling around in my cranium, and I need to know. And I need you compress the time. I just direct me to the right thing. I don't want to look at your catalog or whatever your your I I because it could be overwhelming and then I will be you know I'll just curl up in a ball and and not proceed. Yeah, yeah,

11:52

absolutely. So I'm just technical enough to be dangerous, but we certainly have folks where engineers will come to us and say, "Here's here's my application. This is what I'm thinking, and then we've got kind of the the more technical focused team that says, okay, here's what we've seen other customers do, or here's some some portions of pro of the product line that we suggest you look at, and you can integrate it in your CAD software to see does this work? Is this what we need for this application? And so, rather than us making the decision for the customer, it's rather saying, okay, here's here's several different ideas, and you know, you as the the stakeholder in in your organization need to say, okay, what's right for my situation, but we've at least narrowed it down from 130,000 down to 510, 15, that would be great. And you're you're

12:44

you're making it faster.

12:45

Absolutely,

12:46

and and more efficient and less frustrating, and that's good.

12:50

Absolutely.

12:51

How does how what do you see happening sort of in the future? Put your future cap on. You guys have been around for a number of years. You definitely have a niche, which is just, which you know, from a from my perspective, to be able to tell that story effectively to get people to go, oh yeah, yeah, I got it. It seems it seems a little bit more complex than just hey, we do this. Yeah, you got you've got so many. Where do you see it going? How, you know, just future it.

13:25

Yeah. So I think for us, the when we kind of tried to map out how we would attack the U.S. market, right? It's for us if you if you were to lay out a market map and kind of the x the x axis is focus on quote unquote standard parts and mechanical engineering components only, and the y-axis is brand visibility. There's a there's a couple of interesting clusters, and and without naming names, like you you've got up in the kind of upper upper left-hand corner, really big names that they offer mechanical engineering components, but it's not the core of what they do, and then when we look at kind of our classic folks that we encounter in Europe or in some of our other markets, the brand visibility isn't necessarily there in the U.S. market, but they also have a focus on these things. And so our mission right now is really a brand journey and kind of developing that brand visibility. I agree

14:21

with that, yeah, because it it because because of your European roots, if you're just breaking into the market here, and it's a couple of years into that journey, yeah, it's it's that I can see that being a challenge, and again, from my perspective, What what what's the frustration that exists out there? Like what what? How are you making my life easier? Is it just because I I can just go to you and get that information? It just it's there's no no problem with that. I mean, is that where the the pain point or is.

15:00

Yeah, I think there's a couple of different pain points that we hear from our our design stakeholders that we partner with, and the the one kind of the lowest hanging fruit that you mentioned is just nobody has enough time, right? Everybody's departments have been cut due to budgets, and everybody's got more leaping, and

15:17

you know he's got that churn.

15:19

And so if you're if you're a mechanical problem solver, do you want to spend three hours designing some little widget that's going to go in your machine, or do you just want to use off-the-shelf components so that you can keep your big picture in mind? Right. If I'm designing a, you know, a million-dollar welding robot, do I want to spend time designing leveling feet or handles or spring plungers, or can I just use things off the shelf?

15:43

See, and that's interesting. As a a recovering software implementer, everybody that whole conversation about we just want to put we just want to take it off the shelf and implement it never really works. But you can do that in a mechanical setting.

15:57

Yeah, and one of the things that we do as well. So that's kind of the lowest hanging fruit. Kind of the the other frustration that we hear is like I I don't want to go to nine different suppliers to get my mechanical engineering needs. Right, so this supplier specializes in this thing, this one in this thing, and so our value proposition on the for Norlem specifically, our our tagline around the world is a part for every purpose, and so what we want to have is that

16:22

pretty big. Yeah, if we if we have

16:24

over 130,000 components, our desire and it's it doesn't work perfectly every time for sure. Right, but our desire is to have what a customer needs for a certain application, right, and to be able to be that one stop shop for an engineer. And so, to your point, can you always use something off the shelf, no. But you can get pretty close, right? And so one of the one of the things that we offer to customers is, we're not a custom job shop. But if you say, hey, I really like this locating pin, but for my application, I need it in a material that's not on your website, and I want the same dimensions. It's the same basic thing, but I need a different material, and I need it heat treated to X, Y, and Z. You know, can you do that? We can. We have the ability to make modifications to parts within reason, of course, that allows off the shelf to be semi-custom. Right?

17:15

It's quite fluid. You're quite. You're like the slinky. It's just like you can pretty much put yourself into any. That's that's really pretty amazing.

17:25

Yeah, we we do our best.

17:27

I think you succeed. How do people get a hold of you there, Peyton?

17:31

So the the best way is going to be LinkedIn for sure.

17:34

Good answer because I just grab the link and I put it on Industrial Talk, and then everybody can get a hold of you.

17:40

Yeah, absolutely, and we're we're happy to answer any more questions that anybody's got.

17:45

And the company is norelem, N-O-R-E-L-E-M. Go to norelem.com. Do you have videos out there?

17:54

So we do. We do. There you

17:56

go. That's all I care about. You are absolutely spectacular. Thank you very much. I

18:01

think the same of you.

18:03

Thank you very much. Take that to the bank. All right, we're going to have all the contact information for Peyton out on Industrial Talk. So reach out to this gent. He knows what he's doing. He can definitely help you along and solve your problems with no problem. Norm.com. Make that a priority. All right. Once again, we're broadcasting from MD&M West here in Anaheim, California, and it's a collection of problem solvers like Payton, wanting to help you succeed. So if you're not here, you're not hanging out with the cool kids. Put this on your calendar for next year. All right, we're going to wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned. We will be right back.

18:38

You're listening to the Industrial Talk podcast network.

18:49

Yeah, that's Peyton, Peyton Ford, norelem. Yeah, I said norelem. Yeah, I got it right. MD&M West brought to you by those incredible folks at Informa. You need to put this one on your calendar. It's a must attend a bed from my heart, from my mouth to your ears. I just made that up. You need to attend it. It has all of the incredible innovation and technology that's taking place within the world of manufacturing, and you need to be there. And you get, you get. You see, I didn't know anything about New Orleans. If you if you wander the halls, if you wander the floor, and you're looking at all of these components, they're right in the middle of it. It's an and it's an amazing, amazing business. Peyton, good guy too. You can tell, good conversation, good guy. A must connect. Go out to Industrial Talk, reach out. Everything is out there. I'm looking at his stat card. If you're looking at me on the video, I'm just looking at his stat card. Here's the thing that stands out on his stat card, his LinkedIn stat card. Director of Gold. Keepers, that was a number of years ago, but it's pretty cool. He's a director of goalkeepers. Yep, soccer, or shall we say football? All right, all right. Again, Industrial Talk is here for you. You need to amplify your message. You need to get more eyeballs on what you do. You need to. That means you just need to tell your story. Reach out to Industrial Talk. Go out to IndustrialTalk.com, and you will connect with me, and we'll have a conversation. We want you to succeed. Again, from my heart, through my mouth, through your ears, we want you to succeed. All right, be bold, be brave, dare greatly, hang out with Peyton, and you will be changing the world. We're going to have another great conversation shortly on Industrial Talk. So stay tuned.