In this week's Industrial Talk Podcast we're talking to Dan Anderson, Manager at Life Cycle Engineering about “Real Strategies and Solutions for an Effective on-line training program”. Get the answers to your “Virtual Training” questions along with Dan's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

You can find out more about Dan and the wonderful team at Life Cycle Engineering on upping your online virtual training platform game by the links below. Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2020. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy!

DAN ANDERSON'S CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danandersonlinkedinprofile/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/life-cycle-engineering/

Company Website: https://www.lce.com/

Company Twitter: https://twitter.com/LCE_Today

Company Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LifeCycleEngineering

Company YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/LifeCycleEngineering

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Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/

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The post Mr. Larry Olson with Picavi Talks about the power behind wearables in logistics appeared first on Industrial Talk.

In this week's Industrial Talk Podcast we're talking to David Cahn, Product Marketing Manager with BlueRidge Global about “The Need for Supply Chain to Invest in Resiliency”. Get the answers to your “Supply Chain Resiliency” questions along with David's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

You can find out more about David and the wonderful team at BlueRidge Global on creating a resilient Supply Chain by the links below. Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2020. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy!

DAVID CAHN'S CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dacahn/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blue-ridge-global/

Company Website: https://blueridgeglobal.com/

PODCAST VIDEO:

THE STRATEGIC REASON “WHY YOU NEED TO PODCAST”:

OTHER GREAT INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES:

CAP Logistics: https://www.caplogistics.com/

Hitachi Vantara: https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/home.html

Industrial Marketing Solutions:  https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-marketing/

Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/

Industrial Dojo: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial_dojo/

Safety With Purpose Podcast: https://safetywithpurpose.com/

YOUR INDUSTRIAL DIGITAL TOOLBOX:

LifterLMS: Get One Month Free for $1 – https://lifterlms.com/

Active Campaign: Active Campaign Link

BombBomb: BombBomb Link

Social Jukebox: https://www.socialjukebox.com/

Industrial Academy (One Month Free Access And One Free License For Future Industrial Leader):

Business Beatitude the Book

Do you desire a more joy-filled, deeply-enduring sense of accomplishment and success? Live your business the way you want to live with the BUSINESS BEATITUDES…The Bridge connecting sacrifice to success. YOU NEED THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!

TAP INTO YOUR INDUSTRIAL SOUL, RESERVE YOUR COPY NOW! BE BOLD. BE BRAVE. DARE GREATLY AND CHANGE THE WORLD. GET THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

supply chain, demand, pandemic, optimize, people, inventory, blue ridge, systems, problems, industrial, industry, supply, drive, managing, david, collaborate, talk, planning, technology, selling

00:04

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 go. All right, again, welcome to the industrial talk podcast. That's right. It's about you, you industry here on if you're out there on video, I'm pointing right at your face right now. This platform celebrates you, you are bold, you are brave, you dare greatly. you innovate. You're changing lives and you're changing the world each and every day. And if you're not, you know, think, come talk to me because you are. Thank you very much for joining. Thank you for joining this particular celebration. All right. in the hot seat, we have a gentleman by the name of David Kahn, that ca h n. Blue Ridge global is the company and this is a timely topic because of this squiffy, whatever this market we call post pandemic, pandemic, whatever it is. Supply Chain must invest in resiliency. How about that one? Yeah, let's get cracking.

01:16

Come on. That's a cool topic.

01:19

I mean, I've had a number of conversations about supply chain and why it's important and it is important, don't get me wrong, it is important. But I think one thing that this particular COVID world we live in, we need some level of resiliency within that supply chain, because I think it caught us off guard. But you know what people like David, Blue Ridge, and others, they have answers because you know what we're all about here on the industrial talk podcast, right? You know, we're all about educating. But we want to educate in a entertaining way. That's right. And we want to be collaborating, and we don't just want to collaborate and chirping each other. We want to collaborate to come up and solve problems, because industry, you solve problems. And we have to collaborate to do that. We don't have all the answers. But when we get together in a collaborative way,

02:12

answers happen. I love it, you're solving problems. And then of course, we got to really think about innovation, we do. And they're not gonna happen if you're not educated. And if you're not collaborating, and you know, innovation is a result of that type of stuff. You got to dream, you got to think big, you got to work with people. The industrial talk podcast, the industrial talk platform, is a network of networks, where we're doing an industry talk, industrial talk. 2.0, how about that, because we want to be able to take you, industry professional, you, whoever you are, you know who it doesn't really matter, and be able to highlight your skills because you solve problems. Industrial talk.com is where it's at. Be on the lookout because it's pretty duck gun. Cool. I'd telling you right now, um, for me, I get, you know, I'm always excited. I am I do, I'm pointing at myself, right now, Scott does get pretty amped up about things. But this one I was I'm really amped up about because you could go out to industrial talk, you can then go to industry heroes, we're going down that road, you go to that industry heroes, right? And then you're gonna say, Well, I want to know somebody that's in, let's say, oil and gas. I want to know somebody that's in a, you know, IoT industry for data, whatever might be, and you can filter and find those individuals and their companies and reach out, and then find out everything that is damn cool about every single one. And then you're gonna say, I want to educate some more. I want to collaborate with them, because I want to innovate. How about that? I'm all tingling now. That's pretty doggone Cool. All right. Let's get cracking. Again, I gotta tell you, man, this was a pretty cool doggone interview. I really enjoyed it. David, just, he's got a lot of energy too. You'll notice if you go out there and a video if you go to YouTube channel, my youtube channel industrial talk, and you find this particular video, or you can just go to industrial talk and then find his where his podcast is located. You'll see the video there too.

04:24

He's, he's, he is infectious when it comes to this supply chain stuff. I'm telling you right now. It makes it fun. And I mean, it is entertaining. I'm new without a doubt. I'm thinking about changing my career to be more simple. No, I'm not. I'm sorry. That's, that's just me just putting myself way out there jumping the Shark Tank right now. But anyway, we're gonna be talking a lot about supply chain resiliency, and we do need it and what do we do? What are the strategies? David is out there.

04:56

He's got a badass stat card on LinkedIn.

05:00

Yeah, but you could find it on industrial talk and you're saying, Scott, Okay, I'm gonna do that. Yeah. David Kahn, he's bringing the lumber. Enjoy the interview. David, welcome to the industrial talk podcast. I'm excited about this conversation. How are you doing? I'm doing mighty fine. You know, living the dream, living the dream. And that dream is what?

05:22

solving problems on this solving, you know, the problems on industrial talk today. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I hear you, because that is important. And that's what people want to hear. problem solving. With a with a sparkly attitude.

05:39

All right, let's give the listeners a little background, a little 411 on who David Kahn is and Blue Ridge global and then we're going to venture into I like this resiliency in your supply chain and why we need to do that. Give us a little background. So David Kahn, been around the AARP supply chain CRM space for too long.

06:03

You know, Ben worked in manufacturing b2b distribution retail had my own e commerce companies for a while, built them grow them sold them

06:15

and, and driving really driving product marketing activities and content for Blue Ridge and and Blue Ridge. Global is isn't actually a supply chain planning provider. They're kind of a leading space in the

06:29

wine and spirits in the food service. Oh, really? distributing

06:35

automotive aftermarket? Yeah, I was you had me on line and spirits? Yeah, yes, they do.

06:44

Dramatically these days. So yeah. So they're doing very well. And they do pricing and planning and price optimization and planning optimization.

06:54

Well, the industry see it like that. And I mean, it was funny because the pre pandemic, right? If you can remember back then, because I certainly can't apparently, that was such a long time ago. But but apparently they were saying, but anyway, pre pandemic, we didn't realize how important the supply chain was right? Just like it you just took it for granted. You know, that product was on the shelf. Yeah, there it is. It's right there. It's ready to go. And then the pandemic hits, and then all of a sudden, Where the hell is that product? It's not on this. Then everybody all of a sudden said, Doggone it, where is it? And then they realize supply chains. pretty important. Yeah. As we go scramble for, you know, sanitary clothing and toilet paper and hand sanitizers and can't find them and empty shelves. And yeah, pretty cool stuff all sudden, it was but then that segues into what we're going to be talking about, I realized how

07:48

how, to a certain extent, how fragile that supply chain was, we just sort of took it for granted. And it was like, doing its thing. And then all of a sudden, there's a burp in the old thing. And then all of a sudden, boom, everybody's all pissed off. Tell us a little bit about investing in the resiliency. What does that mean? I don't know what that means. What are we really talking about here is that the pandemic and there's gonna be other crisis's, you know, that occur every, you know, every day, every year, you know, and that caused basically the supply chain disruptions that you talked about. And they're requiring really better visibility to supply and demand fluctuations. And that's really what, what we're talking about resiliency, and then how can I respond quicker. So you see, like, for example, unforeseen weather events, and seasonality. You know, we have spoilage on fresh fruits and vegetables, we have people hoarding items, we have demand for other items, you know, that comes to come almost to a complete standstill, you know, you got all these different changing business models, you know, you have foodservice distributors that were selling a lot to restaurants and that kind of distribution channel and now selling to grocery stores. And so whole different shifts and models are occurring. You know, same is true with, you know, the wine and spirits in a manufacturer starting to ship their business models and making hand sanitizers, you know, and selling that to totally different markets. And at the same time, you know, how do I get these products to the market, because of this, you know, there's labor shortages on drivers. And so, you know, so not only even if I was able to react, I got delivery and fulfillment issues. And as people come in, you know, people want to get this stuff faster, better, quicker, you know, they want to get used to ordering today and getting it tomorrow and getting into an hour. And so that puts unbelievable demand pressures on how I support and how I can respond to changes in demand a lot faster.

09:55

I'll tell you it

09:58

it highlighted just

10:00

That complexity that exists today in the supply chain and how, you know, that chain itself, there's some weak spots within those links. And, and once that one, one link begins to falter a little bit, then everything else starts to there's a rippling effect. And so, so the question I have to you recognizing that if you haven't taken this whole pandemic thing seriously, and made some adjustments, and making your supply chain more resilient, what do we need to do today to, to, to achieve that?

10:33

So it is a couple things. One is really, we have to fine tune how we drive our planning, and pricing, you know, and, and the amount of data that we're that we're coming into the supply chain, and how do I absorb that. So for example, Blue Ridge is using a lot of artificial intelligence and machine learning, based on that data that's coming in, I mean, this phenomenal amount of data is coming into the supply chain. And so at the same time, they you have to maximize or optimize the 1000s and 1000s of stock keeping units that you're delivering to the market, and through different channels. So you may have a, what they call a multi Echelon network where you're selling food, distributors, you're selling those distributors and selling to wholesalers. And then you're you're selling

11:24

to retailers. And so managing the inventory and the price point and the geography by category by assortment, you know, how do I effectively do that without using some level of machine learning or artificial intelligence to help me drive that analytics, you know, much more effectively, and optimize my levels of assortment inventory, optimize my revenue, you know, slashed my inventory, carrying costs, but really one of the unique things about

11:57

it, it all comes back to our, you know, knowledge of supply and demand, you know, traditionally managing that supply and demand. And one of the unique things is we started out historically with supply, you know, supply chain planning. And that was really managing the supply side.

12:16

And then we started to wake up one day, and we said, you know, we need to start managing our demand better, we need to get better visibility to the math. And so up came this house sales and operations planning, and we were marrying demand management systems with supply chain with supply chain planning systems. And so the next evolution really came with integrated business planning.

12:41

And really what we're talking about there is integrating some financial modeling into the system. So I can find to my revenue streams, fine tune my margins, optimize and even tune that demand that selling the products that I want to sell versus reacting. And that's really where the pricing optimization comes into the equation. So yeah.

13:03

David, it's interesting, you're, you're talking talk, you're walking the walk, you're doing all this stuff, that's really pretty cool. I just think that people because of the pandemic got caught off guard, I think what you're talking about is a very sophisticated level of thinking associated with their supply chain that supply side demand side, using AI analytics data, pulling it in and, and and being able to identify those nuggets of insights to make better decisions. I think, because of the pandemic, everybody's like, Oh, my God.

13:37

It's out there. But I mean, you're, you're a sophisticated type of guy. So think about it, you know, simplistically, let's kind of take it back level. So simplistically, no one wants to hold the inventory. Nobody want it

13:53

doesn't want it, the distributors don't want it and the retailers want to keep their inventory, you know, as fast moving as possible. Everybody wants that inventory to move as fast as possible. So we implemented all of these different tools to manage that inventory, as fast as good as well as we can. And so we want to know, as fast as possible, from the demand of when we buy it, how to replenish it, we want to we want to react really fast. We want to know which stock keeping units are moving faster. How do I want, I want to optimize the fast flowing, I want to do something with the slow moving, but at the same time, how do I balance that? And since no one wants the inventory, you know, everyone's running lean, so you get a disruption or get a spike in demand. And the supply chain is not ready for that. We no longer have that luxury of huge buffer stocks and huge safety stocks.

14:56

You know, everyone is, you know, we're delivering right today.

15:00

The consumer, we're deliberately cutting out the middleman in a lot of industries, no one wants the inventory. Everyone wants to accelerate that whole supply and fulfillment equation. And what's funny is, I've been at a lot of industrial sites, and they have this hush hush conversation about their bone yard. And it's, it's a special locations where nobody wants to carry inventory, but they have a bone yard. So when that whole problem happens, they have a bone yard, that they have this buffer stock.

15:36

And so the buffer stocks, you know, is really what they call safety stocks. And it is, you know, how do I optimize that safety stock, because I really don't want it if I can, if, I mean, the safety stock is like your insurance policy, it is. And so, if but if I had better forecasting, and better demand visibility, and I was much more integrated throughout the supply chain, that bought the stock was safety stock could be lower, and lower and lower, and it would reduce everyone's carrying costs here, here's my, here's my question is, is I get it, I see what you're doing. That's fantastic stuff, great thinking, great innovation in that mindset. But what if the, if I'm a, a vendor, and I'm just, I'm old school guy, right? I do it this way, I've been doing it this way forever. I'm gonna have my I'm gonna have a disconnect between my innovative thinking like what you're doing, and having that conversation with old school guy, and and see how I can optimize it. How do you deal with that sort of disconnect?

16:41

lexicon disconnect, I don't know. So I think really, you know, the, the problem is,

16:48

is that that person that was doing it manually, or spreadsheet wise,

16:53

can't do it that way anymore. He just can't. The reason is, is that we are now delivering, and fulfilling our customer customer demands, in so many different ways you can order on one place and have it shipped to another, you can order online and pick it up in the store, you can, you know, managing all of those echelons of quality of inventory, where do I put the inventory to optimize my demand signals? Where should I have? How much should I have? What? which items? Should I have that in it? You know, how do I how do I price those items more both effectively to drive revenues, wherever is the ones that have the least carry. And at the same time, people are driving more customized, personalized type of products. So the number of stock keeping units is going is growing phenomenally. You know, it typically in a high tech market, the average product life cycle is about 14 months. So there's new products coming out every day. So you know,

18:01

how do you

18:03

use and you should aspects without a system? I i what i hear you saying, David is that you if you're listening to this podcast, and you do it on a spreadsheet, I highly recommend that you sort of get into the 21st century, and begin to invest in some innovation, to manage that demand and supply all of the stuff or somebody who's just gonna go ride around you and satisfy their need to be able to not hold stock but have greater real time capabilities. So don't don't be left out in the cold. Right. Yeah, exactly. It's just not that. Come on. It's not that difficult. It seems to me it would be far more difficult to manage these doggone spreadsheets, then

18:56

not to allow the technology the innovation to do it for you. Right. It just seems I mean, we're there now. I mean, is so, you know, we've always kind of managed the supply side, and that, you know, we're getting better handle on the demand side. But what are the things that really can shape the demand and drive ultimate clean a forecast is that pricing optimization tool? So you're really bringing in financial metrics for the company that, you know, what is the target margins that they want to achieve? What is it? What is the high selling products that they want to move forward? How do they remove How do they move the slow moving items, or end of life items that we just talked about? How do I how do I optimize what I have and drive the revenue and shape my demand instead of being reactive? I want to be proactive. And if I can be proactive in shaping the demand that I want to sell at the price points I want to sell then I can supply that

20:00

more effectively and more efficiently. And I can lower my inventory, optimize my carrying costs, optimize my inventory delivery systems, optimize my fulfillment, for what the truck loads, and I need to deliver out to out to the channels. And

20:15

can I incrementally approach this problem? Because you know, as well as I do, everybody gets into that business mode, we're just doing this, we're just grinding it out. And, and and

20:26

we're not optimized by any stretch of the imagination, I'm just sort of to, in general, is your way of being able to sort of incrementally proceed down this road to do that?

20:37

So yeah, there is I mean, you know, you're going to start using a lot of start using, you know, before you start planning, you're going to start executing, you know, I got a react, I got a new customer, he wants this, and he wants this product, and I need to get it to that person. So you're going to react, you're going to use what we would call supply chain execution, you're going to optimize your transactions to fulfill that order, prioritize that order, get it on some truck and deliver it, you know, and so you're going to use different warehousing systems, different transportation management systems, that really drive execution of, of your supply chain, where you start getting the next level up is loud, let me stop that and do better planning of that. Ah, yes, let me plan better. You know, let me get a forecast that's more accurate. And traditionally, you know, your forecast

21:31

is going to gonna be off, you know, I didn't rock it, it was it was so mature over here, I could forecast I could sort of deal with it over here pre pandemic, but now the pandemic is good. I'm having a hell of a time trying to forecast this, like, because I have no idea what that that demand side equation looks like, because I so squiffy out there. How do I deal with that? So there's a lot of different technologies, a lot of different methods in which you can start getting real time signals of the demand, you know, think of integration from a retail or, you know, the point of sale system, you know, if I can react, you know, there was one example of a leading

22:14

perfume manufacturer, okay. And they, you know, they put out something like 1500 new products a year. And some of them, some of them are successful, and some of them aren't. Okay, but they gotta be react real fast to the ones that are successful in the ones at the same time, which ones aren't? Yeah, so there was a story where there were

22:37

a leading actress was on Good Morning, America. And she talked about this new mascara that she was using, right? And immediately, within like an hour, it's like that demand. And so that that manufacturer, and those resellers and wholesalers had to, you know, jump up their replenishment. So those demand signals are real time. Yeah. So getting closer to the demand signal, yeah, allows me to be punished better. Yeah, you need to integrate, you need to be able to, you need to connect, it's an integrated, it's a data thing, and you can pull it all in. But this is all great conversation. It's all wonderful. And I got my help. I'm shaking my head, you had me at Wine and Spirits at the very beginning. I was like, super homed in on this conversation. What are the roadblocks so

23:34

just like any other technology, it's, you know, people process and technology. So, you know, I have, you know, the ability, how effective Can I do change management, you know, and another thing is, hey, I've got all these other conflicting projects going on, at the same time, I don't have time for you need help. And, you know, I'm too busy putting out fires, fires, then, you know, try to get things you know, predictive. Yeah. So, I think, you know, moving from putting out emergencies and fires during the pandemic, to actually moving towards something that's more proactive, and planning in the new weld is, is gonna really help it. But you know, you you know, right now people are trying to get back to work, you know, are they trying to survive and trying to figure out how to rebuild and what do I how do I prosper going forward? Or is this just, like, digging a ditch and and filling it back in and there's no real progress being made. But But to your point, and, and for your listeners out there, it's always a human element and the technologies the technology, and you're gonna have great people talk about their innovation and, and how they're constantly adding to it. But unless you get people to really embrace it and recognize that this is important, and be able to prioritize their, their workload, for lack of a better term, it's it's always going to be something of

25:00

Have a challenge. It's always a human element. It's always that culture that keeps succeed or fails it is. So it's like, and boy, especially today, I find, David that the pandemic itself has created

25:17

a greater focus on things that are important right? Before it before pandemic, it was like, yeah, there's a lot of fluff a lot of crap out there. But now, people don't have that luxury of just sort of,

25:32

I want to focus on what is important, and executing it as fast as I possibly can, and adjusting and so on and so forth. Do you get that same sense? Yeah, you know, I, yes, I'm gonna say yes. And the way that I see people responding to that is,

25:49

tell me what I need to work on, you know, managed by exceptions. I know, you know, if, if I if I got all these different, you know, orders out there, you know, I tell me, the ones that I'm in danger of Tell me was the ones that are going to be late? Don't I don't, you know, I don't care about the 95 of them that are on time. Right now, I just let me deal with the five exceptions, you know, and so how do I, how do I get that material? To me faster? How do I fulfill that order quicker? You know, it's, it's management by exceptions, you know, but yeah, we're gonna let the data and the decisions to help drive those decisions on how I'll correct that action, or correct that exception, I'm going to leverage technology to do that I can use machine learning, I can use artificial intelligence to say, how did that I had a similar problem to like that, you know, two months ago, or a year ago, you know, how did we handle it, then, and let the system make recommendations, not only be kind of predictive, but let it be prescriptive. And so a lot of analytics are really much, hey, here's a dashboard of your problems. Some of them will recommend, you know,

27:03

you know, be you know, based on based on past performance, this is going to be late. But if if you can actually start saying I'm going to be prescriptive, and here's how you resolve that issue, then you've got, you know, some true value and with the, you know, with, with the newer generation of people coming on board into supply chain, let them leverage that experience, you know, and knowledge workers kind of technology, you know, brain trust that existed in the company, to how they solved that problems in the past and let them let the machine Help Help the new generation. See, it's cool. I like I like what you're talking about, right? Because I think that

27:48

right off the bat that the genies out of the bottle, if you think you're gonna be doing business the same old way. I mean, a, you just got another thing coming in, um, and, and you can't, you can't expect to survive or have some sort of legacy, if you're thinking that you're not going to have to innovate your business and leverage technology like yours. He just, it's just, I mean, either way, I'll put it. Yeah. And you know, and, you know, a lot of a lot of folks will say, Hey, you know, I have systems that do that already. You know, I already have an ER p system, and it does some supply chain stuff. And I already have that stuff. Yeah. And in reality, that's, that's like you said earlier, like, Where do I begin? So some of those supply chain systems within, you know, most of the MRP systems, they're really not focused on sophisticated pricing, they're not supposed to, they're really an execution system, or, you know, with for the enterprise. And what we're really talking about here is outside the four walls. Yeah, you know, we're talking the supply chain. It's not, you know, most of the EMP systems are going to hit you, you know, throw the production over the finished goods into the warehouse, and you may, you know, support the at an aggregate level, but it's not going to kind of fine tune, how much inventory do you need this distribution center, versus this wholesaler versus this e commerce warehouse?

29:16

That's not what it was designed for? No, not at all. So we complement so bluebridge complements the GRP systems that people are using today. Let let it be the transactional backbone that's running your manufacturing facility and let fluids be kind of the era of your supply chain. There you go. Dead sexy, my friend. All right. David Kahn has his name Blue Ridge, global is the company supply chain and how you create some sort of resiliency was the topic. I enjoyed this conversation and it's a we got to wrap it up. I'm sorry to hear that. Thank you very much for joining the industrial talk cop podcast, David Kahn. Thank you very much. All right.

29:58

Well, yeah, hello.

30:00

Hell yeah. All right listeners. We're gonna wrap it up on the other side all the contact information by the way, are you active out there on LinkedIn? How do people get ahold of you? So I am active on LinkedIn.

30:12

I'm on you just spell my name David cod ch n. Help. Yeah. Bingo. Easy peasy. All of his links will be out there. And do not go away. We will be right back.

30:26

You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

30:35

All right, what did I tell you, man, he is passionate about supply chain and being frickin Bob problems. That's what he's all about. You needed to reach out to this jet. Blue Ridge global David Kahn, you will not be disappointed one day, not one bet. If you're looking out in the video, I'm holding up one, not one bit. All right, we're gonna wrap it up pretty quick on this one, we don't really have time to waste. Remember, industrial talk. 2.0 is coming your way. This is a place where you you need to get a get on a podcast, you need to start developing that content about you, your company, and then be able to collaborate because we're building a market. And we're really a network of networks. Because we need for you to constantly educate. Constantly collaborate, to innovate, because we need you for the future. Industry.

31:28

I'm a big fan as you can tell. All right. Be bold, be brave. Dare greatly hang out with people who are bold and brave and dare grant me change the world. That's what we're talking about. Thank you very much. We're gonna have a great interview right around the corner.

The post Mr. David Cahn with Blueridge Global Talks about the need for Supply Chain Resiliency appeared first on Industrial Talk.

In this week's Industrial Talk Podcast we're talking to Andrew Schutte, General Manager with Smooth Logics and Counterpart-ERP about “The Challenges of creating accurate BOM and Strategies for BOM Success”. Get the answers to your “Bill of Materials” questions along with Andrew's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

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ANDREW SCHUTTE'S CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-schutte-90838919/

Email: andrew@counterpart-erp.com

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/smoothlogics/

Company Website: COUNTERPART | SOLIDWORKS ERP (counterpart-erp.com)

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

solidworks, design, machine, engineer, parts, industry, industrial, cad, order, world, andrew, shop floor, line, robot, material, handle, create, challenges, counterpart, keyhole

00:03

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 go. All right, you industry heroes from all around the world. Thank you very much for joining the industrial talk podcast, you know, this platform right here. As I point to it in the video, it's all about you. It's all dedicated to you. You are bold, you are brave, you dare greatly you innovate. And you're changing the world as we speak, as well as lives. That's why we celebrate you on this particular podcast, because you deserve it. All right, in the hot seat.

00:52

We got a gentleman by the name of Andrew study. All right. He is definitely a person who is with a company called smooth logics. He is the general manager. And we're going to be talking a little bit about

01:09

bill of materials. boms you're saying to yourself, Scott, that's not sexy? Oh, it's dead sexy. So don't argue with me. Because we're here to celebrate.

01:18

Before we get into the interview, just let's let's take care of the business.

01:24

All right, you know that this platform, the industrial talk platform is all about the education. It's all about collaboration. It's all about innovation. And it's imperative, that that you hear that as you take action. Because without innovation, you're I mean, you're not moving that what proverbial ball forward, right. And it starts with education. And it starts with the ability to be able to collaborate, collaborate with great people out there and what's really spectacular, especially on the industrial talk podcast, we have great people that are absolutely have a big desire to collaborate with you. Nope, they do. They do they want to collaborate, they want to educate they want to innovate with you. Because right now, I don't even know what we call this time we live in the squiffy pandemic, whatever it is all I know. One is that we don't have all the answers and we're looking for answers. And we've got to be able to survive, rebuild and prosper whatever that future looks like. And to do that, you have to educate, you've got to collaborate with great industry professionals, and innovate not just from a technology perspective, but innovate on how you interact with your market, interact with your team, and really create some high performance solutions. The next business, because I talk all about that, because it is all about that education, you know, collaboration and innovation. I want to be able to highlight an organization at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

03:02

connected systems Institute that's an S on that systems and their training,

03:09

that that workforce of the future, that digital transformation workforce of the future. They've got an incredible team. Mary Bunzl, the executive director at the connected systems Institute has just put together a rock star team to be able to develop the education that is needed for this incredible, one. Incredible.

03:31

You know, training of, of this digital world we live in, we need to do that. Manufacturing depends on that. Okay, I've covered all my business that you need to be aware of.

03:43

All right, how are you doing, Andrew? Welcome to the industrial talk podcast, my friend. Thanks. It's a pleasure to be here. Hey, did I get the last name right study? You did? Indeed. All right, you listeners out there. You're gonna say to yourself, Scott, how do you spell Scotty? Yeah, I had to phonetically lay it out. But it's s ch u TT E. That's great.

04:05

All right. Okay, for the listeners out there. Give us a little 411 on who you are, Andrew, and then we're gonna start talking a little bit about the challenges with Bill of Materials. Yeah, thanks for the intro. I was born and raised in West Michigan, Zealand, to be specific Not to be confused with the Netherlands, although a lot of people came from the level and

04:28

we're on the west side of Michigan, but west side of Michigan seems to be the one of the manufacturing and automation machine capitals. We send a lot we build a lot of parts of the automotive industry office furniture medical, and we ship a lot of equipment and product over to the east side of the state by Detroit. So I grew up my father had a small machine shop and equipment building. Shop for we predominantly did automotive and consumer goods. So

05:00

Before I had a driver's license, I was making chips, running a mill lathe welder designing in SolidWorks running CNC programming and CNC wiring and plumbing equipment, mostly to assemble automotive parts or office furniture.

05:20

See, you know, that whole area, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, that whole area up there is just this is just rich in manufacturing rich in crafts, and termit the people up there are so proud of what they can accomplish and and what they build. They just there's a lot of energy in building. I love it. I just I love that passion. Yeah, absolutely. We have a

05:54

whole support for it to

05:57

the local public schools, tech centers, I run a educational department at a local adult technical training school. And there's a lot of companies support for the training in the school systems so that we have the next generations that are able to continue to weld and machine and design and make and make great things is huge. Don't get me wrong, I think that there's, you know, other countries around the world are there they're investing a lot of time energy and, you know, the old money into developing that workforce of the future. And, and I've just, I've been very impressed with that commitment to education, that that trade, education. And and it's, it's not like, like, for me, it's not like my dad's

06:46

view of what what we did. It's, it's, it's pretty sophisticated stuff. There's a lot of real incredible innovation that exists today. And it's only getting better. And it requires some really sharp individuals to be able to, you know, build, we need them. We just don't just need them in a big way. And you need to educate them. You can't just throw them on the floor and just say good luck. Have a good time. Figure it out. Nope. This is sophisticated stuff. Now give us a little background on the company that you represent. Yeah. So this created by our

07:24

by our need to solve an EMP problem in the industry. I was a automations design engineer for many years and still do a little bit from time to time. And one of the great challenges with designing a machine. To put something together we'll use the quintessential, you know, like a door handle or view mirror or something like that. West Michigan is famous for making those. And as an engineer, I would get a new door handle or a new rearview mirror for a new

07:56

vehicle that I've never seen before in my life, right 2023 model of the Chevy Suburban, for example,

08:04

I then have to design a machine that's going to put together anywhere from maybe six to 25 parts. And usually the cycle times are, you know, five to six seconds. So it might be a palletized conveyor line, it could be a rotary index dial, it could be any number of things. But every five or six seconds, we need to assemble let's say a Chevy door handle or a Ford f150 door handle or whatever it might be cheese and enemy. And these days, the same door handle fits on multiple platforms. So it's you know, pi Chevy, suburban Tahoe, Yukon, etc. Silverado or whatever it might be. But one of the last machines I did large machines I did for the automotive industry were assembling f150 door handles every five seconds. And it was I can't even I can't even wrap my mind around that. It was five I just can't I'm sorry, I just like that is innovative. I just can't wrap my mind around. Well, it was just spectacular. I mean the statistics as best I can. And this is about a decade ago, but it was only five, five and a half seconds. The most complex version had 36 parts in it. Because between the grip, the pin, the spring, the shock, the dampeners, the bezel, the back frame, the keyhole, the keypad, the retaining pins and springs to hold everything together. And it was all lean manufacturing. So we could do a red door handle for the front right of a four door and then a green door handle for the back left of a four door. And then we could have a right driver side door handle with a keyhole without a keypad. Any combination totally lean quality checks along the way. And then the robots would palletize them accordingly so that the last pallet going on the semi was the first one coming off and it would go right on the final production of the door panel assembly or the line assembly at the Ford plant. See I'm just telling you right now if that doesn't get your skin a little tingly because you've recognized

10:00

That, that it is through the ability to be able to collaborate with these, like companies like yours to be able to be able to do this. It is just it's and, and the simple fact that you're creating these things, and you realize the economy and the auto industry, if you create a dork it

10:21

Oh, my ears bleeding. Yeah. And it's what happened. And I mean, it's really amazing. We're kind of the the tail on the end of the dog, right? We're taking any, we're taking 50 some parts, not counting colors, uniqueness's and that kind of thing. And we're I mean, we're just simply assembling them, we're not even manufacturing, the components themselves, they come to us. So we take a spring, we take a piece of plastic, we paint, you know, we take a keyhole or lock cylinder or something. And we're just putting them on putting them together and assembling them. There's an entire production line before that, that even manufactures and delivers and ships the product.

11:00

Yeah, so getting down to the bills of material, right? Imagine as a mechanical engineer, you're you're responsible for designing a machine that has will will take a guess I don't know that I ever counted but 70 80,000 unique components, right, I'm designing a machine for a part I've never seen before. So I design a nest I've never seen before I design hard to only, you know, robot end of arm tooling, there was presses, there were glue dispensers, there was everything. And it's basically all custom certainly purchase some things and ABB robot, for example, you can purchase some at 20. And kind of doing Erector Set framing and guarding. But we had, you know, torch, or we had plates that were torching out, machining down, lots of fixtures, lots of hard tooling. And all of that has never been before been designed to because it's for an assembly machine that's never been for but built. That's for a part that's never before been, you know, designed or made. And so the the great challenge, when I was a full time design engineer, my boss would come to me and say, you know, to meet deadline, or the shop is slow, or we got to get a jump on this, you designer give me parts so that the shop can make them. And from a designer standpoint, I my response is always well the designs not done. And my boss is like, well, we need some linear. So give them this frame, give them this base plate like is that part gonna change. So then as a designer,

12:24

actively designing a machine, I have to keep track of what's on the order, you know, what's on the shop floor, what what has the 10 week lead time that already had to start being maybe made or even bought, right robots have 1012 week lead time sometimes. So we might have bought the robot. So now I can't change the design too much less the robot not fit or not work.

12:47

So there's a very, very complex bill of material management problem not only in the design itself, right? How many 12 millimeter proxies Do I need to sense the 17 functions on this machine, in various sub assemblies in various quantities. But so there's there's a very complex build material management challenge, but it gets infinitely more complicated. When you are incrementally ordering a designing right, if I've ordered the frame, then I have a bill of material that has the frame on order, but then the Bill of Material changes. So now I have two bill of materials that don't match the one the bill material from last week when I ordered the frame and other parts and the bill of material from this week that doesn't match so I have to match those up. And then I have to carry over what was ordered and what wasn't so then I have to order more or cancel some or replace some more increased quantities or decreased quantities. And I have to interrupt here because this is all with this particular line. This this analogy this example is of you designing something new to be able to deliver a product at the end and be able to do it efficiently meeting whatever time specifications quality specifications, and in a big probably becomes your flexibility to be able to manipulate that line becomes less flexible as you progress down that road well and be able to and I'm also on that particular project, that f150 door handle project I was also working with four other designers. So right you know, element, right i mean a different designer could change something that affects my components or my bill of material without me knowing about it and then what gets ordered doesn't fit. So I mean there's always reworks there's always oh that part no longer fits I forgot to change something or I changed something and forgot to document or a document and I forgot to tell somebody I told somebody but it was already made. And you add the one of the great challenges of custom automation or custom anything machine building automation or otherwise, is at the end of the day when you start bolting it together, figuring out what parts you don't need that got ordered. What parts you do need that didn't get ordered what parts that did get ordered that were wrong or changed.

15:00

And what doesn't bolt together?

15:03

And then I've been I've been in this industry my entire life, I've done it. Since, like I said before I had a driver's license. And at the very end of the assembly, do we have the parts? Where are they? Are they correct and do they bolt together is, you know, always two or three weeks before the machine is supposed to be done. And it's all hands on deck. It's a total scramble it's, it's, it's absolutely insane, depending on the size of the project, and how well it's managed, if you don't have a good bill of material management and integration. So with that said, What are the solutions? Man, you my talk is already tight listening to you, and all the challenges that exist associated with pulling this together and getting the right bomb out there. What do you what do you what are the steps, man? Give us some actions here? Yeah, absolutely. So from a designer standpoint, you know, engineers are known for being meticulous and very percent precise and accurate in their trade. And that's all those good qualities. When I when I look back, I'll quick sidebar here just a minute because it's a fun, fun stat. Yeah. But when I look back at the mistakes I made as a mechanical design engineer, when I was in industry full time, most of the mistakes that I made were in managing paperwork, right, like fourth grade math between bills of material and trying to match up quantities and match up bill of material line items. Most of the mistakes I made were were clinical paper processing, book work issues, my design work and have historically always been very good and very accurate. It's just a matter of, are you properly communicating, documenting and managing from a book work standpoint, the design that you have in CAD, and so much of the industry is absolutely backwards, I would have to print off stuff that I wanted to have made and take screenshots of bills material to give to purchasing and say buy these things and give physical paper prints to the shop floor and say manufacturer this component right? You've never seen this block with a hole in it before. Can you make me three of them. So we're counterpart really shines counterpart is our EAP solution counterpart actually comm is we directly integrate with SolidWorks. So we get to explain SolidWorks, which is fine, but what's solid SolidWorks is probably the most prolific 3d CAD software in the world

17:28

have more licenses and more users out there. It's the software that I teach at our local adult education trade school for mechanical design. And it's a product from vessel systems. A sister product would be like Katia or x design as a newer variants.

17:47

But they're they're an OEM CAD design software. And it's pretty much the number one CAD software in the particular industry that I'm referring to as the automation machine build industry.

18:00

So we directly integrate with solver, which is really exciting, because I can design anything I want on SolidWorks. And from inside of SolidWorks never leaving the CAD program, which as an engineer, right, I that's all I ever want to look at. I don't really like looking at my email. I don't I mean, other than emails from you, those are pretty sweet.

18:17

Thank you very much appreciate that. But but as an engineer, right, I want to look at cat I want to design I want to be creative, and, and, and, and stretch my abilities and my thinking in what I am good at what I'm passionate about. The rest of it is just unnecessary evil. So Kevin Hart allows the engineers to stay inside of cat stay inside of SolidWorks. And from inside of SolidWorks, create an order request and say I the engineer, I need one of these frames made and then keep designing, I never have to print paper, I never have to talk to another person, which is usually a plus in the engineering world. We're not very eco friendly.

18:57

And then as I as I keep designing, I can I can continue to order modify that order. If I change the frame, I can process a revision. And all of that electronically gets communicated in real time downstream to purchasing to manufacturing to assembly to everybody else. So it really eliminates mistakes. We've had customers gain 15 to 20% of engineering efficiency and reduce mistakes. And that's not designed to say so I designed the wrong hole I'm going to get the wrong part. But the accuracy conversion from CAD from SolidWorks down to the shop floor, we've reached high 90th percentile of accuracy using the software correctly and the mistakes have been human error. So it's it's it's a really amazing tool. It drives a lot of innovation and efficiency in communication going mostly paperless because if I have brilliant 3d CAD on computer, why would I reduce that information to a physical paper prints to give to a machinist, a CNC machinist who's then going to go get the 3d

20:00

CAD and machine often 3d CAD, right, the paper doesn't really help much anymore in today's society, especially when, with the proliferation of 3d printing and everything else. Right? See, this is interesting because you're, you've created a platform as a system a process that instills a level of discipline, and you're absolutely spot on. If I, if I have to go from system to system to system to system and all of this around it, and everything in between.

20:29

There's challenges with that, I doubt about it, I get it, right, like what you're just saying, SolidWorks, boom, I'm there. Yeah, like one of the biggest competitors that we have in our space, I would say most of the companies that we sell to their, their previous product process was require the engineer to log into QuickBooks, and create a purchase order to buy the things that they need. Like that. That's most of what happens when we when we demo or when we are talking to a company. And the business owner is like, you know, I really like it if I could get my seven engineers, if I if I could, if I didn't have to require them to use QuickBooks every day. And you're like, that's just such the wrong tool for the application right?

21:13

Now, you don't want them in there, right? Yes, stay stay in your area, stay in your zone, right there, stay in that CAD program and get that thing done, and allow technology to generate what is necessary to fulfill those orders and to make it happen. Now, that's all great. That's all wonderful. But you know that there are roadblocks what what, like what, you know, nothing. Not everything is, you know, pink elephants and, you know, cotton candy. What, what are the challenges here?

21:42

I mean, so many of the challenges are discipline and rigor. Without having a direct SolidWorks integration, there's a little bit more flexibility, right, I can have design something and say, I know there's going to be a robot there. But I didn't put the robot my design, just go order a robot. So there's, it kind of raises the bar and it says, What's in SolidWorks, is what you're going to get. So make sure your SolidWorks models are accurate, update your SolidWorks data. And it's kind of a wiziwig product at that point, what you see is what you get, and it it requires a little bit more rigor and discipline on the engineering side to make sure that all the i's are dotted and the T's are crossed, to make sure that you're going to get what you really want in the end.

22:26

But they're roadblocks. I mean, what I mean, this sounds great. That sounds perfect. That sounds like the ideal. What's the point? I mean?

22:34

Why, why? What are the roadblocks? Why is it just people? Is it like I've, I've got my GRP here, I've got I use this? Can we do this? And I have no problem over here. Yeah, I would imagine that's the case. Most of our customers don't have the RP. A lot of the customers only sell into they're using QuickBooks or Excel. I mean, of course I got you kidding me? No, not it's not a slam on Excel, there's a purpose.

23:05

That was probably our is the is the software or we replace the most often.

23:13

But

23:14

a lot of these small automation companies, it's an owner that's really good in SolidWorks, or design or control engineer, or somebody like that, who started out designing and building with a three man team, where everybody communicates and you've got Excel and then they grow into a 30 4060 person company. And then pretty soon their old processes don't work.

23:35

It just overwhelms it's like this

23:38

guy's like walking through probably quicksand. It would be tough. It would be tough and you

23:44

just bite the bullet make it happen. Hey, we're gonna have to wrap it up. Here's the deal.

23:50

What you were talking about, resonates with me How do I get ahold of you? counterpart dash earpiece comm is our product website where you can email any of the sales team from the links at that domain.

24:05

So you don't have any issues with me providing your email address out on industrial talk.com don't mind or the the generic sales email address we can get you connected to the right sales individual or lead directly is no problem at all.

24:20

Excellent. I like that. All right, listeners. You got to get a hold of this gentleman. Andrew askcody is his name smooth logics is the company the other website is counterpart dash er p.com. And you know as well as I do, everything will be out at the industrial talk.com so Fear not, do not worry about it. I got I want to get a hold of Andrew but I don't know how just go to industrial talk.com find his

24:49

his podcast look at for the lookout for, you know all the contacts that are necessary. Andrew, thank you very much for joining the industrial talk podcast. Thank you, everyone.

25:00

It is a real pleasure. Excellent time. All right, listeners, I want you to be bold, brave, dare greatly hang out with people like Andrew who are bold, brave and daring greatly and I'm telling you right now, your view of the world will change and he will be a positive impact to changing lives. But that's what you do anyway. All right, we're gonna be having another great interview like Andrew right around the corner. Thank you very much for joining. We will be back with another great interview shortly.

25:34

You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

The post Mr. Andrew Schutte with COUNTERPART Talks about how to Up Your BOM Game appeared first on Industrial Talk.