Building a Manufacturing Conglomerate Progress Thread

[machinistguy]

Did you ever nail down training/ process sheets? My first manufacturing job as an intern my main project was to make them for every process! Kept me busy for sure, but it can be 100% done by an Intern!

My operations manager is good at those. He's way more detailed and meticulous than I'll ever be.

Edit: Hiring for a continuous improvement position (Intern) would be great. Very common in shops I've been in. Let them be creative, do QC studies, do time studies, 5S stuff etc.. Would greatly reduce "Fires".. Increase profitability. Especially if they are rewarded once they reduce scrap, reduce time, etc..

Hadn't thought of that; it's a great idea.

Build your leadership team to handle this stuff!

Yep! We're still small so there's some roles like engineering where I'm the only one. Hoping to hire a few more people in a couple of months.

 

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[amp0193]

The amount of problems and fires that keep coming up is outstanding.

you got this.

Business is hard sometimes. The winners are the ones that don’t quit.

 

[machinistguy]

I think we're about to have our first legal dispute.

Property manager sent out a plumber to check out a leak. He reported us for environmental code violations. Said I told him we dump chemicals down the drains and a bunch of other stuff that's not true. We've done our best to stick to our city's environmental laws (which are already way stricter than the neighboring cities).

I'm really confused as to why a guy sent to find a leak, would suddenly start claiming I told him things that I never did. Property manager has gone all up in arms about the environment and told us we were in violation of our lease, and she'll hold us in default until we clear it with the city... But we already had to get the city's environmental services department's approval to even operate...

 

[Bounce Back]

I think we're about to have our first legal dispute.

Property manager sent out a plumber to check out a leak. He reported us for environmental code violations. Said I told him we dump chemicals down the drains and a bunch of other stuff that's not true. We've done our best to stick to our city's environmental laws (which are already way stricter than the neighboring cities).

I'm really confused as to why a guy sent to find a leak, would suddenly start claiming I told him things that I never did. Property manager has gone all up in arms about the environment and told us we were in violation of our lease, and she'll hold us in default until we clear it with the city... But we already had to get the city's environmental services department's approval to even operate...

Sorry to hear people are being lame. To me this sounds super suspicious on the property managers part.

I’d be curious if a) they want to lease your space to someone else for more or b) they have a bad leak on their hand and looking for a scapegoat…

Either way if it was me I would do everything in writing with them on this matter now.

 

[machinistguy]

My employee thinks it's b). He has a whole theory.

 

[machinistguy]

The launch of our second product line was a success. We're flush with cash and new orders at the moment. My initial reaction was to pay off some of the business debt, but after talking with my dad, it makes more sense to improve the business and take this opportunity to grow sales even more.

Focus on opportunities not problems.

 

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[EngineerThis]

The launch of our second product line was a success. We're flush with cash and new orders at the moment. My initial reaction was to pay off some of the business debt, but after talking with my dad, it makes more sense to improve the business and take this opportunity to grow sales even more.

Focus on opportunities not problems.

Lucky to have a dad like that! My financial advisor would agree, says to never "Trade Good money for Bad" meaning don't use (good) cash to pay off (bad) debt, use cash for investment. Borrow against the investment to pay off the (bad) debt with lower interest (bad) debt.

 

[The Sandman]

Lucky to have a dad like that! My financial advisor would agree, says to never "Trade Good money for Bad" meaning don't use (good) cash to pay off (bad) debt, use cash for investment. Borrow against the investment to pay off the (bad) debt with lower interest (bad) debt.

I'd say it really depends on comparing the potential investment against the current debt arrangement. If you have a good growth opportunity that will reliably yield 10x returns then by all means go for it. If it's a bureaucratic "find some place, any place to use this money" situation then you're probably better off paying down the debt for the known returns.

 

[ZackerySprague]

The launch of our second product line was a success. We're flush with cash and new orders at the moment. My initial reaction was to pay off some of the business debt, but after talking with my dad, it makes more sense to improve the business and take this opportunity to grow sales even more.

Focus on opportunities not problems.

Congratulations man.

 

[amp0193]

Focus on opportunities not problems.

Just depends on macroeconomic forces.

A downturn any time soon, and you’ll be wishing you’d paid down the debt.

But if you think you can pursue some immediate ideas and make hay in the next 18 months then go for it.

Unfortunately, the current whirlwind of government changes I think makes the near term future more unpredictable, so I would err on the conservative.

Chaos is a ladder though, and this will also be a time of massive opportunity for some.

 

[machinistguy]

• Feb profit was decent, and this is after I completely paid off our high interest loan along with our annual insurance bill and a few other things.
• March should be pretty good too.
• Finished and delivered prototypes for two new product lines.

• Hired a marketing employee that starts Monday.
• My goals are getting more defined and my health is improving, which is translating to improved productivity. Google says companies like mine sell for ~5x EBIDTA. Goal is to reach a valuation of $3-5m in next year or two and sell. I am feeling absolutely done with feeling tied down to this business.

 

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[machinistguy]

Been trying out a new schedule to boost productivity, been killing it so far:

Monday: Recurring Tasks (e.g payroll), Financials, Company Productivity Improvements
Tuesday: Marketing + Strategy
Wednesday: New SKUs
Thursday: New Product Lines
Friday: Wildcard

NO LATE NIGHTS, must leave by 7PM.

I'm surprised at how much more I'm getting done when I start saying no to things, because they're another day's responsibilities. Laser focus on one thing at a time.

 

[machinistguy]

Vendors refusing to quote because of tariff uncertainty. Customers not paying invoices overdue in close to a month. Machines down for completely unknown reasons and no service techs available. It's been interesting.

Launched a new marketing campaign for our direct to customer sales that is doing well overall. It's doing it's job of de-risking our reliance on our one giant customer and increased sales by about 25%. We would have been screwed these two weeks if it wasn't for this campaign because we have not been paid in a while.

We're on track to do 2x last year (if the temporary shit like machines not working and customers not paying gets resolved), and I have a couple new product launches that are going to make sure we get to at least 4x revenue/per month by end of the year.

I've identified a production process improvement that will improve overall throughput by 20%, lower material cost by ~5%, and reduce labor cost by ~15%. It's first on my chopping block after I'm done with all the tax and paperwork BS I have this week.

 

[machinistguy]

We're finishing up the month with more orders than we can currently fulfill. Meeting with our largest client Wednesday to discuss "future projections" which we're assuming is them wanting to increase our work load based on what their employee told me last week. Just hired someone new an hour ago and working on hiring one more. Really pushing to get myself out of the weeds of the business.

Thoughts currently stuck in my head:
- Need to capitalize on our momentum ASAP to take us to the next level.
- "We never have to time to do it right, but we somehow have time to do it again because we messed up the first time."

 

[Bounce Back]

We're finishing up the month with more orders than we can currently fulfill. Meeting with our largest client Wednesday to discuss "future projections" which we're assuming is them wanting to increase our work load based on what their employee told me last week. Just hired someone new an hour ago and working on hiring one more. Really pushing to get myself out of the weeds of the business.

Thoughts currently stuck in my head:
- Need to capitalize on our momentum ASAP to take us to the next level.
- "We never have to time to do it right, but we somehow have time to do it again because we messed up the first time."

What happened with the service techs and the vendor/tariff situation?

Are there certifications or something you look for in hiring that could increase the chance they don’t mess up as frequently? Could you test their abilities as part of the interviews if you don’t already?

 

[machinistguy]

What happened with the service techs

Kept calling them till they sent someone. Spent 6 hours playing with the machine only to tell me he had no clue. I eventually figured it out after doing nothing for 3 days except going through every single possibility.

and the vendor/tariff situation?

Everyone is back to business as usual. Not noticing any price changes so far.

Are there certifications or something you look for in hiring that could increase the chance they don’t mess up as frequently? Could you test their abilities as part of the interviews if you don’t already?

I limited his scope to the easier stuff. We agreed on half salary, part time for a couple weeks. Then if he proved himself he can get full hourly rate, part time. If he then proves he's capable of designing fixtures, he gets a full time position. This is fine with me, because it's easy but tedious stuff that takes up most of my time. The hard stuff is stressful but only takes up 20% of my time.

 

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[EngineerThis]

- "We never have to time to do it right, but we somehow have time to do it again because we messed up the first time."

This is every manufacturing/Engineering place I’ve worked. Don’t beat yourself up..

a good motto I remember is “No one will remember if you’re late, as long as it’s right”

 

[amp0193]

I eventually figured it out after doing nothing for 3 days except going through every single possibility.

I bet you learned a lot. What a pain in the a$$.

Glad to hear you've got some momentum, hope it stays that way.