“Is AI the Savior or the Killer of Machine Shops?”

In this episode, Const (DigiFabster) interviews Zane Hengsperger, the new General Manager at Delta 70, discussing his journey into manufacturing, the concept of factories as products, the role of automation and AI in the industry, and the importance of training and upskilling the workforce. Zane shares insights on quoting strategies, the significance of marketing in manufacturing, and his approach to learning in his new role. In this conversation, Zane Hengsperger and Const discuss the importance of leveraging AI for business processes, the significance of customer relationships, and strategies for small manufacturers to thrive in a competitive landscape. They explore the need for diversification in customer bases, the role of customer feedback, and the challenges of vertical integration and shipping. Cybersecurity concerns are highlighted, along with the dynamics of nearshoring and the necessity of attracting young talent to the manufacturing sector. The discussion emphasizes the evolving landscape of manufacturing and the opportunities for growth and innovation.

Takeaways

• Factories are not just about the end product, but the entire process.
• Automation should enhance human roles, not replace them.
• Training employees for new skills is crucial for successful automation.
• AI can significantly speed up quoting processes in manufacturing.
• Understanding customer context is vital for accurate quoting.
• Marketing plays a critical role in attracting new business in manufacturing.
• Building trust between people and technology is essential for AI adoption.
• Learning from the shop floor is key to effective management.
• Optimizing manufacturing processes can have a positive economic impact.
• Engaging with the workforce about their goals can lead to better outcomes. AI assistance is crucial for scaling business processes.
• Storing information is essential for effective learning.
• Customer loyalty is vital for long-term success.
• Diversifying customer relationships mitigates risks.
• Feedback from customers can lead to significant improvements.
• Vertical integration can enhance control over processes.
• Shipping logistics present unique challenges for manufacturers.
• Cybersecurity is a growing concern for all businesses.
• Nearshoring can create competitive advantages.
• Attracting young talent is essential for the future of manufacturing.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction and Background

05:58
Zane's Journey into Manufacturing

11:59
Training and Upskilling Workforce

17:48
Quoting and Pricing Strategies

24:02
Learning and Structuring Knowledge

32:22
Leveraging AI for Business Processes

39:20
Diversification in Customer Base

44:41
Navigating Shipping Challenges

50:10
Nearshoring and Trade Dynamics

Transcript

0:00

Hi everyone, hi listeners, hi everyone who actually watch us on YouTube. So my name is Konst, it's Machining Beyond the Craft. That's the new episode. I have Zane. I will try to spell your last name. Hansberger? Hansperger. Alrighty, alright you. Cool, cool, cool. So yeah, great to have you on the show. So funny enough, I think we met on Twitter. Or okay, on X actually. maybe seven months ago or eight months ago, at that time I think you sort of leading the wave of the new manufacturers and reindustrialization at all like in Twitter and like, okay, actually Twitter actually is alive, more than alive or more, I guess even more than LinkedIn, you know, and... all the conversations there about manufacturing, very open, very sometimes brutal, course, sometimes super honest as it should be, of course. And yeah, so I think that's how we met. And yeah, just a bit of background on yourself. So I know you just took the position at Delta 70 as GM. So congrats on that, of course. I think it was like a long time in working, in cooking on that, of course. So it's great. It's great. And I think you were famous for saying the phrase that Factory is a product, right? So Well, I think Elon tweeted it a while back and a lot of people like to reference it. It's one of my favorite things to reference. So I definitely didn't create it, but I think there's a lot to that. So what's your definition of that? that's a really good question. think basically that factories, the product means if you want to get costs down and what you're actually producing at the end of the day is made, like the advancements are made in the factory itself. So it's not the end product. It's really the process, the people, the space, the machinery, everything that goes into it is the product. And that's kind of what you're buying that like really high touch manufacturing process. I think this is the way how most of manufacturing should think about that. Because again, even though as I said many times, I think there's the tons of the engineers that are extremely passionate about manufacturing, that running machine shops. By the end of the day, we're talking about the business and we're talking about the product. And we really want machine shops to be product. Because the product can have higher value, of course. And just as a business, as a service, yeah, that's something that you want to build. That's something that you want to build, that's something that you want to grow. And that's the way of thinking, I believe, is important, especially in the US, and especially because you want to be competitive. US, obviously, is super competitive environment. So I think that's the way to think about machining in the future. Not in the future, actually, now. So in those days. Yeah, I had a customer ask me today like they were asking me about our product they were asking Do you guys design do you guys design in house? Do you weld in house? You know, where do you ship to how fast you ship? What do you have in place when something doesn't go right? So I think I kind of speaks to like factories the product right there not of course they care about it the other day what's produced but most of his upfront questions were really about our process Exactly, exactly, exactly right. So can you tell me more about your background? So how you get to, again, not only Delta 70, but also immune infection. So yeah, tell me more about that. Yeah, so my first job was scrubbing a floor at a machine shop. Got it through my dad, thanks to him. So he really introduced me to the space. I absolutely hated it. And we can speak about this a bit. Like, you know, in my mind, manufacturing was not sexy. It's what I grew up in. I worked in a lathe, did some like injection mold tool making, like plastic tool making. I didn't like that either. So I ended up doing some shipping. I cut the grass. I That kind of thing. moved into kind of like a sales and marketing role and then I went to school. So this was all in high school and maybe like first freshman year of university. And then, know, the whole Andreessen thing came out. Software is eating the world. All these big software companies are coming out. And I actually went. So I did an internship in sales and then I actually went to Uber for three months working in their sales department. After that, started my own company in software, which was a great lesson and a lot of things I can apply to now back in manufacturing. But I was kind of thinking what to do next and what I really wanted to spend my life's work on. So I connected with some guys from that machine shop and we're kind of looking at opportunities in the manufacturing space, CNC injection molding. And at that same time, I went to the Reindustrialize Conference, which was kind of a turning point for me. just learning about how critical manufacturing is to our economy and our communities. you know, everyone I know, my friends and family work in manufacturing. So I thought, you know, wait, maybe this is cool. Maybe this is something with a lot of opportunity that I could be good at and take what I learned in software. And then I guess from there, found Delta 70 manufacturing, which is manufacturing custom steel racks for automakers, aerospace defense, and thought it was a great business with a lot of potential. in the automation space, I describe it as infrastructure for manufacturing. So now I just started on Monday, it's a week ago today, I was a general manager there. That's cool. That's cool. So basically you did a full circle from the perspective of first your dad actually drag you into the manufacturing, which you hate because again, that's the usual relationship in between the dads and the sons. And then you did this full circle like, hmm, maybe he were right. Maybe there's something. So that's very cool. That's very cool. That's very cool. Great. so, okay. So The interesting stuff because again you talking about automation a lot of course I think that's probably one of the point that you thinking about a lot again giving your position and Delta 70 and Obviously, it's a tons. It's a tons of talks about automation for manufacturing people thinking about that from different perspectives, and I think there was a very interesting quote again from Elon I think five years ago or something like that where he actually said so Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated. So my question is, when we're thinking about automation, automation manufacturing specifically, so how to first introduce automation, know, in the factory, and second, how to make it work where you're not sacrificing, not sacrificing humans and relationship and like... workforce of course, but instead basically increase their skills, capacity, like skill sets and everything. So how to introduce automation is in the most powerful way to the factory. Yeah, it's a good point. Sorry, a good question there. So how to introduce automation in the factory? most kind of in the most ethical way but also like in the most effective way I guess because again giving that most of the most yeah go ahead sorry No, no, I'll get it. I'll speak to it kind of from like a small manufacturer because we're not too big. We're about 15 people right now kind of fluctuating between more and a little less. But I think it's a really different question when it comes to like a small manufacturer or like someone like a Rivian or a Tesla. The way we think about it, you know, I always think people first, you know, how can we scale people? they can do some of the more nuanced work. When we think about actually bringing in automation, it's what little things can we bring in to make our people more effective? So I would never think of automation as how do we replace people? I really think about how do we grow our company? You know, I've been probably in three or four shops now for a significant amount of time or like, you know, at least six to 12 months. And when we bring in automation, it's really to grow the business. So trying to do the small tasks better. If we have like an assembly and we can automate 5-10 % of it, that allows our girls to work on more important things, kind of upskill and advance their careers too. So basically, this is kind of the automation where you picking up even the small things that can be automated and just even with a 5%, 7 % gain, that's enough to even to try that and maybe it's foundation for something bigger, right? Right. I think automation scales at the same time as your sales. So we wouldn't just like we were going to automate as much as we grow at the same time. So I'm not going to. I guess how I wear this like. If our sales aren't growing I'm not going to start automating things. I want to automate like the simplest tasks so then that person working on that job can go work on maybe the design more or. trying to get more output out of the same process. So on a practical level, how do you see this cycle when, let's say you see some area where automation makes sense from the scale perspective, from the business perspective, of course, and there's the people that needs to be trained and needs to actually be committed to that as well. Because again, if your team is not committed, like you can try anything that you want, but you know, is going to fail. So, how, what's your approach on training the people? How you see the, what's, not even talking about like maybe step by step, but overall how you see this approach to train people for the new skills and overall to, you know, to automate some of the areas. Yeah, I like knowing my people well. So if we have a team and there's, you know, I can think of one guy who sits there and welds the same part all day, every day, that's not too exciting for him. So it's nice to sit down with them and ask them, hey, what do you want to work on? Where do you want to be in five years? Where do you want to be in 10 years? And really work on their goals to see where they want to build their skill base. So in this case, they're doing the same part every day, but if we can help them train up to automate a robot or some of these robotic solutions are really easy to program, it kind of makes their work more exciting and more meaningful. So instead of welding the same part all day every day, now they're programming robot to work on that part. And then they're also working with maybe our foreman to design the jigs and work on more output from the factory. basically always take into account their, not only their strengths, but also like basically they are interesting, particular topics, things, know, areas, and you help them to double down on that. Yeah, you got it. That's perfect. That's perfect. Great. Yeah. So, because again, like I think at the end of the day, when we're thinking about automation and then now we're thinking about AI overall for small teams, because again, we always, we always start small, of course. I think that's extremely important to not thinking, not thinking about that through the lens. Okay. So let's replace the people or let's hire some, some new people. We're thinking about more, okay. So, you know, we have some skill gap. It exists. Okay. So what we can do about that, right? So how we can actually give our people tools, solutions, whatever, so they can do their work better, faster, and just overall be more efficient. Because again, at the end of the day, being more efficient, I think that might be desire of most of the people. Because again, you just, it's this fulfilling kind of thing where you can do more with less or do more with... you know, with what you learned. And I think it needs to be this rewarding feeling, you know, when you're starting to use new tool, you know, you have new skills, you're applying that, and like, okay, so it's actually work. So I think that's something that we actually aim when we applying automation or, you know, any other tool with a team, I guess. Yeah, I definitely agree. And that's why I kind of come back to the thought process of talking to the team and saying, where do you guys want to be? How can we help you grow? We want this company to grow at the same time too. So let's do it together. Exactly, Good. That's good. let's kind of move a bit next to the next, I think important thing that consuming minds of people and overall it looks like that it's just inevitable. Again, obviously talking about AI and application of AI specifically in manufacturing, of course. Because like, for example, on my end at DJFabs, we're not just thinking about that a lot, but also like, of course, applying all of that. But it's something more than technology, of course, because at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is build a trust. Well, of course, like being a company that's servicing manufacturing shops, you're building the trust in between people first, and then you want to build a trust in between people and technology. And again, when we're talking about AI, especially in the early days of AI, it wasn't a big trust in like AI. was like very like a weird thing. Now it's getting better, getting better every day. And you kind of the gaining this trust over basically now over days, over months, not even years now. So how you view the, or what do you think like, because again, like When we're talking about software and even hardware in manufacturing, the adoption cycle of that always was very, very lengthy, very long. So again, that was the topic in LinkedIn about that, like maybe manufacturers to stop burning or something like that. I don't think about it that way. Again, engineers, minded people be more pragmatic about everything. And that's one of the reasons why they're not like, okay, let's right away, let's apply AI automation, whatever. So you want to be pragmatic about the things like that when you're applying new technology and things. But what do think, will AI actually increase the speed of adoption and pace of adoption of the software and maybe hardware for manufacturers? Do you expect this acceleration? it'll come slower than other industries. mean, I think that's kind of obvious. I guess to kind of spin that a bit, think... I think AI will help speed things up from like a process perspective. So right now if it takes me a day to get a quote back to someone and I do 200 quotes a year, that's a lot of time. So if I could actually speed that up, I think it's gonna be these little nuance like. really important processes that can get sped up with AI. think quoting is probably one of the most important ones to focus on. I think a lot of people complain in North America about the speed of quoting. And the reason it's so hard is also because of the accuracy of it. So that's kind of what you're talking about with the trust part. Yeah, what do you think? What do think I'm missing besides quoting then? So it's a funny thing and that's one of the reason why I did this survey just recently. What's your number one mission critical priority at the shop regarding automation? And I did it both on Axe and also on LinkedIn intentionally of course, because again, that's a slightly different audience. So I just wanted to see either any overlap, but again, both results are put in voicing and quoting on number one, basically number one choice for mission critical thing for manufacturers. Again, I don't draw any conclusions based on that, but at the same time, it looks like it's the bottleneck for sure for most of the manufacturers. Obviously, there's no silver bullet. It's not like one solution that can solve all the problems at the same time. But I think there's a deeper problem in that because again, always in every single talk with the manufacturers we're talking about accuracy and this like it's it's it's almost almost a myth like you know it's it's it's must be accurate or something like that but again accuracy is a weird thing because again especially now especially because we i mean those who are running the shops they're running this as a business it's not just machine shops engineering engineering thing, it's a business of course. And we're talking about that we can't take into account like geometric data when we're talking about the quoting for the parts. We actually have to take into account more than that. We have to take into account market, competition. Also things like context of the customer that we're What type of the customer it is? Is it like a large company? Is it like two bureaucratic company? Is it like who's decision maker? It's a lot of this levels, layers, I should say, in that. So geometry shouldn't be just one single component into quoting. It should be much more than that. And that's something that sitting... in the brains, in the heads of the, you know, of the quarters, of the owners, when they, especially of the owners, because again, they running not just the machine shop, but they're running the business. And when they thinking about the quoting, they always thinking through those layers. Yes, geometrical data and let, yes, my, cost of electricity, labor and everything, but also market competition and the company factor, right? The customer factor, I should say. So I believe with AI, it's definitely more practically possible to take into account all those factors when you do the coding. Of course, obviously it will require access to the data, not only just kind of public customer data or something like that, but also some other factors. Like does this customer require specific certification or specific something or it's a troublesome customer to work with or something like that. It's factors. those factors are very different, you know, customer by customer or shop by shop, they're always different. But again, we're talking about AI and we're talking about all those language models that can help make those things possible. So that's how I think about, you know, AI and coding. And that's what I think is the next, basically next frontier in that. And I think this will happen pretty quickly. It's also interesting, I can, well now I'm in this fabricated role, so I see it less geometrically, but more in just this math equation at the end of the day. How many labor hours do I have? How many, what's my cost of material? How complex is it, which kind of falls into labor hours? And I think... rather than thinking about AI as something you're going to press one button, it's going to be solved. I think the better way to think about it is what information can I give it? So maybe I give it, my, like I just said, like my labor, my costs and how busy I am, what markup I want to make, how big is the customer shipping, all that stuff. And then it spits out a quote a bit faster. So if it can, it can be 50 % to 90 % faster than it is now. I think that would be incredible. I don't think it needs to be down to one minute, even if it's five or 10. I think that's what will realistically happen, but I could be wrong. No, mean, we're definitely talking about incremental changes, like even if it's a 20 % gain, that's perfect, that's already saving you lot of time. But yeah, like I'm thinking about that through the perspective of that over time, of course, if you, let's say you use your, I don't know, proprietary AI model for, you know, for your own quoting. So this thing obviously, you know, update the memory every single time when you, you know, when they quote a part. for a specific customer and then of course it's building your own data set. Yeah, that's where the AI will get really cool. if I can start, like everything we fabricate, we build a CAD model for. So if I can just start uploading those and then it gets transitioned and then maybe it is a one second thing, maybe it asks me a few questions. Like it probably still needs to know my material costs and my labor rates and stuff, but that CAD, like almost like the Zomatier approach, that will be interesting. So how you think about the pricing strategy now for Delta 70? Is it mainly basically your knowledges, not only about some of the cost side of the job, but also from the market perspective? So is it something to have how you do it now or it's more sophisticated than that? Well, luckily Delta 70, like I said, I started a week ago and I've been kind of in tune with the company for about three months, they've been in business for 50 years, so they know their customers really well. I think we've always been pretty aggressive on pricing. And I guess to answer your question, it's... Right now it's mainly done like pen, paper, and a few spreadsheets. So it's not too sophisticated, but it's like very rigorous, good process that takes into account everything so that we can get the lowest price for our customer. So I'd say we spend more time on it than I initially thought we would, but it sounds like it's worth it so far. So how, more practical question, so how you store all this knowledge, this information around the customers, around the cat models, around everything. Is it ERP or just again, pen and paper sort of thing? paper, files, very old school, but it's been working. Who's responsible for that? Is it like office manager who like basically... Okay, so it's very common thing. So basically office manager is the core of the company who actually know all the customers, know all the context. So that's the best person for AI to talk to, to learn from this person. And then based on that, help to boost everything, I guess. Yeah, there's probably thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands of these office managers around North America that's kind of run these manufacturing shops in a sense. And I'm really grateful to be around this person and learn from them and hopefully influence some things that will make their lives easier. But I think a big challenge that software players will have or even just... new companies will kind of be like breaking what these people are used to. So a lot of like the tier ones and OEMs are for lack of a better word, creating these portals where you go and submit your invoice and all that. And I guess it's more of a cybersecurity and you know, putting everything in one place kind of thing. But it does kind of ruffle some feathers and like, you know, it's a... It's just not as, like I said, I came from a software background. These people aren't as malleable. For better or for worse. yeah, yeah. We had a lot of experience with our customers machine shop that dealing with procurement portals a lot, just a lot. No one happy about that, but that's how things works now. I don't know if it's going to change or not. The only thing that we can do is again, like to help them to build all the products around that and support, of course. And even if it's like going to change like all the time, that's fine. That's fine. So you, you just, again, you applying automation or AI or whatever, where it makes tons of sense, when it actually can help you scale. Because if not, it doesn't make any sense. So yeah. And like mission critical areas of the business, like quoting is really essential. Otherwise, like I was kind of stumped earlier because it's like, where else would I use this right now? And I guess, like I said, I'm a weekend, so I'll probably learn and come back and I'll say like, damn, I forgot two other areas, but well, maybe we can do a second episode in a year. So yeah, so being a very new guy at the shop, so and GM of course, what's your like top three priorities now? My number one is definitely just learning, which it sounds very vague and like kind of stupid. Like, well, you're just learning. It's like, no, like I'm seriously trying to spend as much time on the floor as possible. I literally, there's like a thousand quotes from over the years. I've been reading every single one again, our customers, what kind of, orders, what the pricing's like. so that's kind of number one, again, talking to the entire team. So I'm doing an interview with every single person that works there, from the shop floor to the office. Number two is sales. know we obviously want to grow the business. So hopefully we'll be doing more operations in the future, but I don't want to get in touch with our customers. So it's more program management. A lot of our quotes are just sent to us. So it's not really going out there, but I really want to understand the customer. So again, it's kind of learning again, but like what do they want? How can we help them? And then three is just implementing, I guess, new things. again, I don't want to do this like initially cause I'm really am optimizing for learning the business before we shake up too much. Like I said, it's a 50 year old business. But already we're looking at, know, our customer doesn't need to provide us a cadre on what we've generated for them. This opens up our customer base, allows us to do a little bit more like design for manufacturing about what they really need, give them some more time. And then... I guess kind of looking at ways to optimize the shop. it's even like really simple things like, hey, there should be six tubes on that saw prep, like that iron worker, not two. How do we get more efficient? So learning, doing some sales and program management, and then trying to get in tune with how to like efficiently operate the shop. Yep, yep. So what would you say is it one of the maybe premier reason why you take this job is to do like optimize everything and make it more efficient? it like solving the problem at the same time? Is it like something that excites you, I guess, the most? I think speaking to like why I came back to manufacturing as a whole, think the opportunity to optimize it is one of like the most exciting challenges. think. It's an older industry. It does really well, but it's like a large elephant that moves at like a turtle's pace, right? So I think it's honestly one of the most exciting problems to work on with like the most positive effects, like I said, like economically for a country, for a community. And it's just really meaningful work. Yeah. like, yeah, it's actually work and your actions actually make a difference. So that's extremely cool. That's cool. So yeah, you mentioned like those three priorities. So does marketing like play any role in that? Are you thinking about that? How are you thinking about that? Yeah, it's actually, I'm glad you brought that up because that's probably number four, if not number three, I'd almost throw that above, like above in that list. So our company had no website, no social media. So those are actually some of the first two things I implemented and really just trying to like build an audience. think that's how we connected on Twitter. That's why we're both on this podcast. You know, I think more of the opportunity in manufacturing does lie around content. From Twitter, you know, I've, I've focused just on manufacturing and gotten like really awesome response from the community and like learned so much, met so many cool people. and utilizing LinkedIn and Twitter just to kind of, like I said, build that audience and really connect with our customers and make sure our presence is out there. So if you do work at a shop and if you are a shop owner, I think you could always be doing more. I watched a video the other day of someone who posted 12 times a day and they grew like crazy, right? So a lot of people say, I don't want to post too much. I don't know what to post. I use chat, GBT, I clip YouTube videos, I do whatever it takes and I really just stick to a plan which is five times a week. yeah, so I'm definitely thinking about marketing. I think it's a huge funnel. I was at a company before that would get about 30 inbound RFQs a month just through our marketing channels, right? So yeah, I'm big on marketing. That's good. That's good. Something that I forgot to ask you, because again, you was talking about your learning a lot, of course, through, you know, because it's a new role, of course. But at the same time, through this process, do you use anything to like, you're gathering a lot of information, do you use anything to structure it in like specific way so you can then leverage all this information in more structured way? Do you use something for that? Honestly, no, and I probably should. I'm glad you brought that up again. Like right now, I'm kind of going off like vibes and like, how well do I know this? Can I walk into the shop floor and really like feel like, oh, this is going well, okay, like recognizing patterns, stuff like that. So I probably should structure, but that almost seems, I don't know, it would be. It'd be tough to measure, I guess, like tough to measure my learning. So I guess I'm really just trying to. like put in the work for lack of a better term really just like I try to be there early in the morning, leave late and spend as much time there as possible but I am open to suggestions about know kind of measuring that or structuring it. Yeah, I think it's not only important, but now it's doable because again, you have this AI assistance or whatever. And it's important because again, at the end of the day, as a business, want to set up these processes, documents, trainings, whatever. And that's the best thing that they can do to use it, to leverage that, to scale things up. So that's the important thing. And I don't know, like all the people different of course, but when I'm learning something, especially actively like gathering the information and everything, I can miss something, you know, the week from now or something. So I really force myself to store all this information somewhere. And again, by somewhere I mean like anything, notes or whatever, and something that you can then kind of... throw into the chat DPD or whatever and because it's memorize everything, you can at any point of time like, okay, so can you actually remind me about that thing or something? But again, think the processes is the most important thing for setting up the process is the most important thing for the business to scale. Because again, and I think that may be one of the thing that a lot of the... let's call legacy shops are missing because again when you're running the business as your kind of passion at first you don't thinking about that you're thinking about you thinking about only kind of daily things you know something that just pops up you know in the morning or something and you go kind of go through this day you know with everything but again you can't you can't do everything you can Wear multiple hats of course, but you can't do anything. At some point of time you will have to find someone who will help you with this thing, with that thing, with other thing. But again, at that point you probably should have some source of information, some structured data, some process in place, so you can easily, not easily, it's never easy, but you can almost outsource this to someone. So that's kind of important learning that I... just learned over the time. Not easy to do, but worth it for sure and very rewarding as well. So, yeah. That's fair. The one thing I guess I have done now that I'm thinking about it is, we didn't have a CRM, every customer I've been learning about, I've been throwing them in a CRM with some notes on what they want, and I make sure to ask them, how do we be a good supplier? So that's one thing I've been doing, which has been nice to pass on to the team. Otherwise, yeah, I think it would be helpful too. you know, if we do want to onboard someone to have a bit of structure and you know, what's our process from RFQ to completion, right? So that would be a good idea. But I guess more of my philosophy is like, how do I know this? Like the back of my hand, how does it become second nature? And that I still think is just reps. True, true as well. Talking about small manufacturers, and again, as we know, our whole industry is basically small manufacturers that either compete with large powerhouses or maybe with overseas competitors and everything. I think most of us learned now from the kind of more successful businesses in machining, in sheet metal and everything. So really to be competitive as a small manufacturer, just have to be less... just have to be focused on very, very specific things and basically saying no to, you know, to all the rest, to pretty much everything that outside of that. On top of that, do you think about something more that can really help small manufacturers to grow, to compete with others? It's really simple thing, but what I've learned from the team so far is that they know their core customers really well. Like when I look through that quote tweet, it's the same... Purchaser the same program manager like a hundred times, right? So they weren't trying to from what I've learned so far I think they haven't tried to go out and get new business which is an opportunity for us but What they've been really good and what they've stuck to is repeat work. So they've had a customer in 2011 that's you know, if I look from 2011 to 2025, you know, there's a quote yesterday and there's a in 2011 There's a hundred in between right? So how do you on those core customers, how do you go visit them in person, how do you shake their hand. I think small manufacturers can stand out really by providing like a niche tail-end service that's like very personable like hey that we're human, we're a team, you're again you're getting the service from the factory not just buying our product right. So yeah I'd say it's really good customer support and program management from your team. looks like loyalty plays a very big role in customer success and in retention overall. Obviously, it has like foundation in whatever, in everything, like in equality of the product that you deliver in the lead times, in the personal relationships as well. But at the same time, you might become some sort of the hostage of the situation when okay, so you're in a comfy position. Yes, you, I mean, it's a comfy position, you still need to deliver in time and everything. But again, it's comfy position because like, you serving and you working with the same person last five years, 10 years, whatever. But obviously, things might change, person might, you know, go and find like new work or something like that. And new person might think about their suppliers differently, right? So maybe they have different view on Or maybe they actually brought their own suppliers. Do you see this happening? Or do you have any solutions for that? What are you doing about that? Or I mean, probably you might face a situation in the next weeks, months, years maybe, maybe not yet. But how would you approach that? Because again, it's... Yeah, a supplier can go to a competitor, you can piss them off, can ruin a part, all these things can happen. it comes down to a few things. First, it should just be diversifying. if you have one customer, that's probably not a good business in any business. So you want to definitely get your amount of logos you work with up. Otherwise... Something we've seen is like someone we worked with, again, it's a 50 year company, this person retires, it's like, oh my God, what do we do? This is our main contact. So getting to know their whole team, getting multiple people on a call, visiting them, it's usually not just one person ordering stuff, it's multiple people, so how do you get into other parts of that business? So not just diversifying with different brands, but also diversifying with different program managers and purchasers within the company. And lastly, sometimes industries. So something we're trying to think about now is like aerospace, defense, because automotive is a little bit cyclical. So just trying to expand to different industries as well. And that's why we are pushing marketing. Just speak on that a bit again. But yeah, it definitely happens. You can kind of, you know, make your own grade if you don't diversify enough. Yeah, I think this is very similar to almost enterprise sales in SaaS as well, where you really want your customer have not only multiple seats because of multiple seats, but also you just want to have more point of contact, you know, and more people from the company use, you know, your software or whatever, just to de-risk everything, basically. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, of course. Good. Yeah, and I think the last point there, just ask them more questions. Like, I asked a guy a few questions the other day about, you know, what can we do better? And he looked at me like he's never been asked that in his life. And I think the bar is on the ground for that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, I mean those those talks with the customers always like you're getting so much feedback, especially if you can dig a bit deeper, you know, just just a bit, just a bit, just pointy questions, just questions that never asked or something like that. And then you can learn a lot. Yeah. And you know what? Probably 80 % of the time you're to say, I don't care. Like I need, I need it to be two things. I need to be cheap and effective. Right. But some, some, uh, some people might tell you, uh, you know what, if you can design this for us, I was speaking to this earlier, you can actually help us a ton. You have contingency routing, um, which I learned the other day is, you know, a backup on here on your trucking. That would help a lot because we've shut down the factory for a week because of, you know, a delay from someone like you. Right. And all these things we just keep on a whiteboard. Key things to remember. So we got that list growing. Gotcha, gotcha. Are you thinking about, and again, obviously it's not your top three priority now, but how you're thinking about, well, let me put it another way. Are you thinking about sort of converting this business into like vertical manufacturer basically, where you own pretty much everything, like all the processes, all the layers. from production to delivery to, of course, invoicing, quoting, everything, just everything. Are you thinking about, from that perspective? Yeah, it's hard. Like one of the first things I asked the other day was, why don't we have trucks? Why don't we ship? It turns out it's very expensive and it's very variable. Sometimes you're shipping 20 minutes away. Sometimes you're shipping to across the country, right? So it's very hard challenges. I think as you scale, you want to become more vertical. That just feels like, okay, that is directionally true. But for smaller manufacturers, it's tough, right? So everything just kind of comes down to what can you scale with and what can you afford? You don't want to buy something that puts you in the hole. You don't want to buy a machine to offer like the full service if you're only going to get one job out of it, right? So this is something that I'm still learning. You know, probably more in my six to 12 month plus plan, but. That's one of areas I'm trying to learn the most in. What can we own from a software perspective and from a hardware perspective that makes us full service. So definitely on my radar. Very interesting, yeah. Especially with the shipping and delivery. So looks like you might want to start prioritizing some local stuff first. Again, something that you can control, something cheaper, kind of cheaper. And then maybe expand it to, you know, whole US or whatever. Yeah, but again, it's, I think it's going to be a very interesting learning curve for you for sure. Yeah, but yeah, just on shipping a little bit, it's a hard one, right? Because shipping companies, you know, they have the contingency planning. That's what they do all day, every day. We're not a shipping company, right? So they can get on time and go faster. They can help with the border stuff if we need to. They can have a second driver, a third driver if needed, and they know the cost optimization. So what we're asking ourselves is do we want to get into that or not? And that's, I think, probably a decent way to think about all these kind of things. Very true, it's also resonating with the software as well. So you just want to pick up your battle and like, do I actually want to get into that? Even though maybe it's going to be beneficial for my company for being deeper rooted into the customer operations and stuff like that. But again, it's pretty hard to do on a practical level because again... especially when you're different, not even different types of the machine shop with different technologies. So it's challenging. But again, at the end of the day, guess it's all about kind of better to make some decision than making no decision at all. Just do more experiments if you can do that. But yeah, so again, I'm trying to follow some of the philosophy where as much experiment as you can do, that's again, that's something that can increase your chances to succeed because again, without experiments, you're just stuck with something that you do for the years and what would you expect? Are you expecting different result? No, of course not. But yeah, it's interesting. risks. It's like this like, maybe you have a little dial of how much you want to turn up the risk, turn it off, or turn it off from one to 10, but, or zero to 10, but you don't want to have it on zero. Yeah, true, very true, very true. Okay, are you thinking about, again, one of the... Well, interesting. talking about cybersecurity topics that are on the top of the minds of many people, but at the same time, sometimes I think it's slightly artificially pushed, even though obviously it's a kind of real threat, real thing. But at the same time... It's not on the top of the mind of the all the manufacturers because again, not everyone involved into, you know, military defense contracts and stuff like that. But again, cybersecurity, probably the broader topic than just defense and military. But is it something that you're thinking about as the as the important area when where you need your company to improve, to think about? Is it like bother you at all? Yeah, so Delta 70 didn't have Wi-Fi for about 50 years because of cybersecurity issues. They didn't have a website because of cybersecurity issues and that was because they tried, they almost got hacked once. So while I think that was five or 10 years ago, I think it's still a threat. The way we're combating this and I think it's a good option is kind of what we spoke to earlier is like, how do we outsource this? So we just hired like an IT consulting service that sets up all of our stuff for us instead of... Having someone in house, which we did have before. So the company I was at previously did have an IT person in house. I think kind of having someone to own that that you trust is like key, but I don't think you want to have no one like or nothing at all. Like it's not like a technology startup where you can kind of just, or you have a technical person or you, you know. You're not really that worried about it because the order sizes aren't too small. Maybe you're just collecting five bucks a month for whatever software. But when you have big orders, big customers, they need to trust and I think you need to have something in place. Like even the other day someone copied our banking information and sent a bunch of invoices. It happens all the time and I think it's an incredible threat. I think it's going to be an increasing threat and I think it's something I need to be thinking about more and every manufacturer should, especially the small ones. Well, and especially, because you're... Basically, it must be concern for some of the customers, because again, they... You're working with them for many, many years, and if you screw up at some point of time, like, it's not going to be good. Maybe they will trust you after that still, but, I mean, you don't want to screw up, of course. So yeah, it's a... Just to be clear, our team did catch the invoice. So no one actually got it improperly invoiced, but we didn't get an alert that someone was trying to do that. And we caught it in our system. So you can catch it. It's not impossible. lot. It's happened a lot. yeah, very hard. I mean, as you said, without dedicated person, it's full-time job. It's a full-time job to control all of that. Because of the volume of this thing happening around, it's just too much to like... really take care as the GM or as the owner. It's just too much. So you have to have someone around that. Interesting. So shifting the topic. So given your current location of Delta 17 in Ontario in Canada. So we at Digifabsure work a lot with the Canadian companies. We have know, thousands of the shops basically on the border with the US. I mean, virtually Canada, the whole Canada on the border with the US, right? it's, But yeah, like we see this a lot. We also have, of course, like shops based in Mexico, also like on the border with US and something that, again, I didn't think about this term near shoring too much, but again, this is something that I, again, I think just learned just recently that, okay, so this is how it called first. I just think about like, it's, It's a normal thing where you're based on the border with the country with a massive economy, with a massive number of the customers and everything. And most of our customers, of course, thinking about that through the lens, okay, so we serve in Canada, customers, separately with US customers, not only because of the currency, but because of the everything. So is it something that you do with the Delta 70 or it's mainly local customers now or you serve US as well? Luckily, and I don't know it's just the way it works out, but we're very like, not to get too political, but very trade balanced. Like just by the way it happens, you we buy a ton from the States and we sell a lot to the States. We buy a ton from Canada, we sell a ton to Canada, like pretty equally. So it's honestly not really something I think about too much. It just seems like a pretty collaborative space. Interestingly enough about Windsor, so yeah, we're in Kingsville, which is kind of in Windsor, Essex County. Winters is really interesting town where it's like a manufacturing town. It's got two or three really big plants, Stellantis, Ford, and Nexstar, which I guess is a joint with someone anyways. And then all these auxiliary shops that not only supply to them, but supply to the states. they're really like, Winters is kind of like sleeper town of like... like manufacturing power and like expertise that's been around for like years and years and years. It's just been so close to Detroit. So yeah, the way I think about it, everyone is helping each other. It's very fair. It's usually stuff people need and there's a lot of great people, you know. in Windsor and then that we sell to and buy from too. So I don't think about it too much, but I know it's a bigger debate in the macro sense. Sure, for sure, for sure. But again, with... I don't know, I think it's both increase the competition, but also like overall help, you know, economy, you know, because we're talking about not only US-based shops, but also like Mexican-based shops and growing number of Mexican-based shops and Canada shops. I know some of the issues with the Mexican shops, of course. again, specifically some insights from the guys who are running the shops there. It's slightly more challenging there, especially with stuff like credit cards, cash, and balance between that, and overall just administrative, know, organizational stuff for the shops. But it looks like it will going to change soon, just because again, like... those guys starting to getting more more work, more and more trust from the customers. So you have to evolve, you have to build better and you have to like, you know, improve as a business. And again, this will not only increase the competition, but also like make the market larger, which is good, which is overall, think that's what we, that's what we want for it, right? Yeah, no, I definitely agree. So it's an exciting time, for sure. Anything else you think we missed? Any interesting topics you would think about? I mean, think something that's interesting is, and I like embody this problem, is that there's not enough people going into manufacturing right now, especially young people. So yeah, like. I definitely don't come from a higher horse here because I was one of the first people to leave manufacturing after going into it. But I think they're, and this is kind of the vibe on X, and hopefully can spread to LinkedIn a bit and just peer groups and friends, but there should be more people going into manufacturing. There should be more young folks who... kind of seek value in it and long-term careers in it. It's tough because some of the wages are lower, but there's a ton of great people working on really important problems and making good money in it. So I kind of want to get your thoughts on that as well. Yeah, I mean, obviously, from the many young people perspective, software job is really, really awesome. So it pays all the bills, it can help to raise your family and everything. So it's kind of non-brainer thing, no brainer decision for most of the young people, of course. And I think this also influenced by everything that you see in TikTok, YouTube, whatever, right? Because again, like you can see this as almost as the sort of the easy money, right? When you get into the software. So obviously, manufacturing doesn't look like that at all. So manufacturing is a shop floor. It's like, it's this environment that you actually need to go out of your home to go to the, you know, to the plant, to the factory, to the machine shop or something like that. So... this wipe is very, different and I think it's the same thing. So you just have to influence people. You have to influence people and show that it's more than that. It's more exciting than that, of course. And again, we're talking about specifically about the sort of the new stage in manufacturing, I guess. It's not going to be, you know, as it maybe was before, like with the shops that doesn't look exciting. I think it will be more exciting job overall look from the outsider perspective. But again, I think as everything, especially with the current generation, you have to influence them in a good way. I mean, in a good way, of course. That's the only way to show a floor and shop environment from different perspective. Right from the perspective of what exactly excites you. So can you share it like with others? So, and maybe those others like, okay, so actually there's something. There's something there, something that excites me. That's one angle of that. The second angle, that's interesting because again, like in the beginning, you mentioned that your dad actually brought you into the shop floor. Sometimes it work, sometimes it not because again, because of these, you know, common conflict between the dads and sons. So sometimes it's work in a good way where, okay, so, you know, I really like what my dad, you know, what my dad do for the living and he brought me into the workplace where he actually do something. So sometimes it work for some people, for some kids, of course. For example, something that I want to do for my kid. And sometimes it's completely opposite, like complete opposite. I don't want to do. anything that related to what my dad did at all. It really depends. But it still, I think, influences a lot when you see how your parents work on something with a passion, with excitement, with everything. So yeah, but it's the same thing, kind of the same ingredient, which is kind of influenced again in a good way, that has to happen. It has to happen in a broader... broader sense now, because again, so we have all the tools to do that. So, but yeah, I really hope that this re-industrialization sort of the Y pipe, whatever it happening, it's not short thing. It's really something that, you know, have, I mean, it has a deeper roots for sure, because again, you want your country to be successful. And again, success of the country, definitely like, you know, around the manufacturing because it's the core. But yeah, I think we definitely see a lot of the things that happening, especially around the space and space always was this super exciting topic that people always was excited about because it's space. It's a mystery. It's somewhere else. You know, it's something almost untouchable for most of the people. So And again, now we can see the space is obviously connected to manufacturing because without manufacturing, it's not going to happen. So things like that, I think, brought new, sort of the new way of thinking for the new generation. So they can think, okay, so it's not only software or how it was like... just maybe 10 years ago, maybe even less than that, like financial education and just overall financial career. So it was on top of the mind. So I actually need to go into the financial institute, whatever, then go to private equity and then I'll be happy. So it's a cycles for sure. And I just hope that this new cycle really brought manufacturing into the, on the top of the minds of the younger generation. Yeah, we'll see. I I think there was kind of like this Mark Zuckerberg social network era where everyone wanted to build the next software product. And that's great. Like think there should be software companies and I think people should work in software. And I think they solve really important issues, but people have seemed to forget about manufacturing and the importance of it. And I think there's going to be, and there are people who are just kind of starting and getting into year three, four five of these new manufacturing startups and. show that you can make a difference, can re-industrialize and I hope that spurs a lot of new people into the industry. Unfortunately, maybe it's just human nature, think a lot of people do kind of pursue status or money, which is fine. You you need money, you gotta pay the bills, but... You know, I don't know if, I think we'll kind of see that shift towards manufacturing is what I'm saying. And there's got to be a few leaders in the space. Yeah, and I think overall those, let's call them new manufacturing companies, I don't know, you can think about Enderil, you can think about Hadrian and other, they probably, they probably, well, first they will definitely prepare a lot of the new people to come to the industry first. That's good. It's definitely good influence on the people and just showing them that okay, actually you can build some exciting stuff in manufacturing. So that's one layer on that. And just overall as it always happens, so it actually, it change, almost change the agenda for everyone when, you know, some top, some interesting manufacturing companies building something very, very new, so it excites people. And just overall just... make this almost influx into the industry and make it exciting for the people. like regardless of the outcome of those companies, I think this will push this agenda for most of the people and with the number of the new companies that now emerging in the hardware space and the manufacturing space, yeah, I think we should be excited about the future for sure. There's no reason to think that this thing go away, I guess. And yeah, just it's going to be many, many people that's going to work for those companies, learn a lot. And probably some of them, I don't know, 20%, 10%, even 5 % going to build their own companies. So that's something that I think, again, regardless of the outcome for those companies, it's overall just perfect for the industry and perfect for everyone. Yeah, there's cool videos coming from like... S3 on YouTube. I think more content around manufacturing is important something that like owners and workers can like Kind of take away from this is like people are hungry for manufacturing content like your shops not too small It's not too dirty like the people love that post on X post on LinkedIn both do well X is a little more better in my opinion, but you know teach their own and Yeah, I guess my call to action there is to post more about manufacturing for sure please lead the way for sure so it's a it's perfect great awesome thanks zane thank you so much it was it was great so let's catch up on the next one i don't know in a half a year from now in a a 12 months from now depends on depends on your pace so if you want to you know move faster so let's let's fucking do it Yeah, let's do it, mean, I hope I come back in like six months and say, hey, man, everything I said was half what I said was right, half what I said was wrong. Here's what I learned. Here's what worked. Here's what didn't. Do this, don't do this, don't listen to any advice, whatever it is. But this has been fun. And yeah, if you ever need anything, let me know. And yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much, Dane. Thank you. Thanks man. Bye.