John Derzy and Michael Lipcsik with Hirata

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

MD&M West, industrial innovation, automation, packaging, plastics, design, manufacturing, robotic cells, predictive maintenance, automotive, electronics, semiconductor, medical devices, Harada, solutions.

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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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John Derzy,

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Michael, Lipcsik.

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See, we should tell you our real names, and maybe that would help. No, you know, that's just me.

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No, it's a game I play because I I suffer. I suffer because of that.

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Michael will be fine. Okay, good. Thank you. You. Help me

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out. You make me better.

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See, we're doing our place. Yeah? See

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you solving a problem, that problem I struggle with, and that's just pronouncing names. That's just it

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is what it is. Mark's problem solved. Thanks very much for having us on it. Yeah, just

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wrap it up. Look at John. He is a card. He is a he's already pulled out the the Seinfeld reference, which is impressive and quite appreciated. Yeah, absolutely, John, are you having a good conference? I am having

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a good conference. Why? Because I love this show,

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and you've been coming to this show for how

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You've seen a lot of changes. I have seen a lot of changes here. See, I love that, that sage insight, because you know, you come across specifically come across today, and you're looking at it in a sliver of time, and you're saying, Oh, that's great. Look at that vision. Look at this. Look at that. You know, that sounds so good, but you know, as well as I do, that has changed

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over the years. Yeah, you know, it's kind of an interesting thing. I haven't really spent a lot of time walking through here, but, but what I've seen over the years is the mergers, acquisitions in, you know, structures of companies and so forth, divesters, things like that. Yeah, because there's so many elements to this industry, there's so many solutions that are available for so many problems, that it just continues to be that type of an industry where you really can break away and go off and do something and really do it

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well, yeah. Michael, you having a good conference?

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Yeah, absolutely, getting to understand sector of the market that perhaps we need a little more experience in seeing old friends making new friends, shaking some babies, kissing some hands. It's been a great show.

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They're here till Friday.

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All right, let's so let's, let's outside of the comedic relief. Year, which I can tell you I appreciate. Thank you very much. It makes my job easier, and I'm all about ease on my job, John, give us a little background on

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where you come from. Well, I'm celebrating my 50th year of working

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this year, trust me, you don't want to retire. Just keep going.

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No, no, no. I think it's knocking on the door one of these days, but I don't know what else to do with my don't bring me down. John. So I've been involved in industrial laser systems for many years. Was founder of a couple of companies along the way, got involved in a lot of bleeding edge technologies, which is always something I've kind of rather enjoyed. And then I went into freelancing for a while. Wound up coming to Harada about 12 years ago, and it's been an interesting and fun ride. And it's a little bit different working for a Japanese company. We do a lot of good stuff, and so that's what's made it interesting, which is interesting

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because you being, understanding your pedigree and where you came from. It's always a challenge to go into a company, and you know, you being the boss now all of a sudden, you're part of a larger company, and it's always an interesting transition.

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Yep. All right, is

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Michael background,

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long, strange trip started out on the manufacturing side with the big three as a manufacturing engineer in southwestern Ontario, Canada, many, many moons ago, transmissions,

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not as brave as I am telling

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you whereabouts and whereabouts in Ontario.

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Well, the schooling was up at McMaster in Hamilton, Ontario. Why is Why are you so excited about that?

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My mom, dad and all my family went to McMaster, lived in Hamilton, grew up in Dundas, right there. Go tie cats. Oh, my,

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oh, what a small world it is. I wouldn't want to paint it, but wow.

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I took a tour of Stelco or Defasco. I had a terminal, yeah, there, yeah, that's, that's just my background,

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farming community just outside of Brantford, Ontario, Gretzky Ville, yeah, named after Gretzky,

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going going to Sudbury. Wow, seeing the big nickel,

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So did you and John go through the new employee orientation together? Because you guys have been around the same,

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arm in arm.

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I followed him through, saw what he had to go through.

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That's good stuff. That's good stuff, John, give us a little sort of history of Harada.

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Rada is about a 50 year old company, actually, third generation now in office chairman, and it actually started out, believe it or not, making handcarts.

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That's a common tale in the world of manufacturing. They start out one way and they end up in

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another, yep. And then one thing leads to another, and then pretty soon, you get into machines, and then you develop customers and relationships, and on it goes. So Harada has some very, very solid, many year customers, and in terms of loyalty and so forth, we have some beauties. I mean, they're great. So for us, when we go out farming business, so it's not like we're farming volume, we're farming long term relationships with customers. So there's a certain type of customer that works very, very well with Harada that has a long term view of things, and not just a short give me a, you know, quick solution here, and nothing to go beyond that. So our automotive sector, we have just about every brand in the world buys from Harada. We're heavy into electronics and semiconductor just about every phone in anybody's pocket as a device in there that's been touched by Harada and consumer electronics warehousing. And this is a market that actually we have been toying with for about four years. No, no, what? What market is that medical device got it, and so we have been looking at it and saying, Well, we want to dip our toe in the water, and we've done that. And now, just like we've done with everything else in the history of ferrata, it's slow growth, one step at a time. The. Right customers, etc. We also have a clinical organization in Japan that is doing robotic cells for cancer treatment, and they're undergoing clinical trials here in the US at present time as well. So we're pretty diverse in some ways, and pretty core at the other ways,

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robotic cell. What is that? Is that a question for Michael, are you throw that out? It's like, what am I supposed to do? Just leave it dangle out there and not not satisfy my curiosity.

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We're trying to give you more meat for your show here.

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Right off the bat, I'm like, I'm not moving forward until I understand what you're talking about there.

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Our forte is automation. That's what we do.

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Yeah. So back to that original question. So give me,

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just give me a pro. Hi, I'm Scott MacKenzie, and I manufacture whatever. How do I take that solution? Give it. Give it to me. What's my problem?

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Well, I see how I

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just, I just see I did exactly you did exactly what you normally do. You look at each other, who's going to answer that? I just

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blew my old. We were both stunned that you don't even know what your own problem is. So how can we give you a solution if you don't know what your problem is? Let's role play.

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So again, you brought up that that

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the term robotic work cell is what kind of got you, right? Yeah, exactly. So robotic work cell is an automation where you can do assembly or you can do parts transfer, or you can do something that takes the place of what a person would normally do, very mundane type of job that's not terribly efficient. And so a robot would find that that would be something that a robot can do repeatedly, and away you go. So it's reliable and it's repeatable and so forth, and it doesn't miss work.

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Is Harada in the world of robotics, meaning they

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manufacture robots. We do. We manufacture robots in our factory. We have a robot factory in Japan. We actually manufacture and trade brand for other companies that sell under their name. So we have this kind of well kept secret in the background, but we use some of ours. We don't use too many of the Harada robots in the US, other than in the semiconductor environment. But in Asia, it's quite a popular

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robot. Didn't know that same smaller

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robots, yes, in the Asian market, that again, Scara robots, small six axis robots, mostly in the Asian markets, and here in worldwide, we'll integrate anyone's robots into an

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assembly solution. Is that a focus that? Is that an effort that you want to try to begin to grow the US market? Or is that just like,

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No, it's not really.

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This is the business. The real business that we're in is not really components. It's systems. We do fully integrated solutions for customers manufacturing problems, so we can both full assembly lines. Our biggest, I think assembly line runs about $100 million somewhere there about so anything from 100,000 to 100 million, somewhere in between, we can solve that problem.

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So I'm to you, Michael. I'm Scott MacKenzie. Scott manufacturing. I manufacture stuff, and I I'm looking to scale my business. I'm looking to add another line. I'm looking to modernize my existing line. I'm looking at whatever I'm trying to be take advantage of this incredible market that is out there. And I see this, I need, I need to scale, but I need to, I need to find somebody that I trust to help me along, to get to get me where I need to be, rather

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Absolutely, Scott, you could join our team. You are, as we find with many of our customers, we don't do a lot of advertising or marketing. You don't we know we talk about our customers and they talk about us as their favorite fishing hole. Yeah, you don't tell. Their friends, but they keep coming back. And of course, we've got such varied experience worldwide in so many products and so many processes, we're able to bring that to the table in some of my other employees over the years, I'd be asked if we'd ever done this process or that process. The answer was, I'd check maybe then I got to Harad and found out, oh yes, we've done it 30 times. At 20. You feel

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so confident that you just say I don't even know. I don't even have to check, because I just know harana has I know

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we've done it. I know we've done it specifically in the automation of engine, transmission, electric drive unit, battery assembly, with so many of the companies that you see out on the road right now, the same with home electronics, the same with semiconductors. Can't say the names, of course, but you've dealt with all of them.

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With that said, How does Harada John deal? And I would imagine it's because of your stable full of incredible engineers. But the market is, is changing rapidly. Seems like it it seems like the market is demanding greater efficiency. It is. It seems like we we have to automate more. We have to we have a unique challenge, not having the right people or whatever we need we need, we need solutions. But it's happening that the market is demanding it. How does Harada internally, I the culture of Harada to be able to deal with such a dynamic job market, manufacturing, like you said, we're here. Medical industry. We just medical devices. We're just trying to see what there's just so much. How do you do that? I don't know.

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It's an interesting

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dilemma, in a sense, right? Because we are all consumers in one form or another, and are always complaining about the cost of things, always, always. And so as a as a consumer, you're looking for products that fit your budget needs, and that trickles down into the manufacturer of that product, or the producer of a product, like a cereal, for example, they have to find ways to reduce their cost, otherwise, they have to continue to pass it along to the consumer. And then there's a point of diminishing returns. Now your sales will work down, et cetera, right? So the variables in manufacturing, and the one that costs you the most is people. Yep, people want raises. People need to live. They want to live the dream. They want to own things, right? So as a result of that, there's this climbing scale of cost that they don't realize they're driving it up, just like everybody else goes, right? So when you invest in automation, what you're doing there is you're trying to put in place a system that will produce the products repeatedly, reliably, with quality and so forth, and not escalate its cost simply because of the workforce. It takes that and does a different thing with it. It's called depreciation of equipment, as opposed to higher operating expense, right? So it makes sense to invest in tools and tooling and automation. We have a big push in this country now to bring manufacturing back. Yep, the US lost its manufacturing many, many, many years ago, and now it's got to come back. So as it comes back, it's driving the manufacturer of that product to look more at automation, as opposed to just hiring people, because you're not going to get enough people. In some cases, in China, you have an unlimited supply of people. I mean, one plant I visited over there, there, there's shift change twice a day. Was 300,000 people in that plant, busses and busses and busses line. You won't have anything like that here, right? But if you want to produce that product here, you invest in companies like Harada, and we've got competitors here at the show. We are the solution providers to those types of problems.

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Yeah, that's, that's a again, you you're touching on a lot of things, and as well as Michael that that capital flow, you know, you just can't just reshore something. You can't just say magically, we're going to manufacture it here. So we also talk specifically around capital does? Michael, does? Michael, yes. Michael does. Does Harada with all of the solutions. Does Harada also provide that maintenance component is, you know, I'm going to service this piece of equipment, I'm going to pull the data off this equipment, I'm going to predict that all of that stuff does. Does Harada do that? Absolutely?

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Yeah, you really need to be able to continue. To support the customer. A lot of the customers want to be self sufficient. I mean, they don't want to rely on another party to come in and fix a problem, right? Yeah. But if that problem is something beyond their means, they want somebody there, yeah. And we are there for that. And, and the predictive maintenance is, actually, is a is a new thing that's coming into industry, and it's been buzzworded about over the last two years, yep, industry 4.0 yeah. And that they're

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also chirping 5.0 yeah.

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And nobody even knows what 4.0 is yet, but five will be better. Yeah, so much more better. It'll be better than four because it's a higher number, it's got to be better, absolutely. And so as a result, you know, but what we've done is we work with a lot of supplier, sub suppliers to us, you know, people that make PLCs and motors and things like that, and we drive on them that we want to have some some data come back to us Sure, so that we can take the various components that comprise our system and be able to answer the customer's Question about predictive maintenance. So we do,

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yeah, no, that's, that's, you have to, you know, you just, I would imagine you just can't design a system, or can design a solution, create that relationship, and then say slap on the back. Hey, thank you very much. We'll, we'll talk later if you need anything else. I'm not sure if that's a sustainable business model at all. You know, they exist out there, right? You know people do that, yes, you know. And anyway,

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and they rename their companies every few

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years. Yeah, that's,

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that's true. Yeah, I can't keep up with it. And then they try to, they try to find the right URL, and it's a mess. It's a mess. Absolutely a mess. Michael, how do people get a hold

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of you? Well, I'd say the best way is to reach out to us at sales@hirata.com, and it's H, I R A, T, a.com there. It is

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same thing for you there. John, yes, sir,

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you're not retiring. There is no way. No, no. There's no way. With all that you know knowledge rattling around, you're going to leave, and then somebody's going to come up to John, and then John's going to say, John, we don't understand what's going on. You have all this knowledge. Well, hire me back as a consultant. Well, let me ask

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you this, with all the knowledge I have, do you think I could be a good contestant on Jeopardy? Well, yeah, to that is no so shut up. I guess I just have

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to, they're here till Friday. You want to check out their comedy routine? They're here till Friday.

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John News and Brews. News and Brews,

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John Michael, you guys were absolutely wonderful.

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Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Scott.

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You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network. You

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all right, MDN, M West, Anaheim, California. And you know what you get there? Not you get to all of the manufacturing, without a doubt, but you get people like John and Michael. They were amazing. Harada is the company, and if you're if you're looking to up your manufacturing game, you need Sherpas. You need manufacturing Sherpas in your corner, and you need John and Michael to sort of help you along on that journey. They're great guys, I guarantee you, you need to reach out all of the contact information for these two gents are out on Industrial Talk make it happen. They're there to solve your problems and help you to be a success. Also put on your calendar for next year, MD&M West. Again, it's going to be out in Anaheim, California. It's brought to you by those wonderful people from Informa and they put on a great show. I don't know how they do it. Honestly, I had some other conversations with the individuals that are putting it on, and I don't know how they do it's just way above my capabilities, most definitely. All right, Industrial Talk is here for you. We want you to succeed. You need to tell your story, not from the perspective of you and what you do, but from the perspective of how you solve the challenges of today's market. It is a customer centric conversation, and you need to put that mean to me. To L. Debate that priority to be able to have these conversations. Industrial Talk is here for you to be able to make that happen and and it's easy. You just go out to Industrial Talk. You click, hey, let's have a conversation, and you'll be talking to me. All right, it's just that easy. It's in your court. All right. Be bold, be brave. Derek, greatly hang out with John and Michael. You will be changing the world. We're going to have another great conversation coming from MD&M West, so stay tuned. You.