Sometimes machining companies tell Graff-Pinkert they have long running, lucrative jobs supplying parts to the D.O.D., and it always has seemed a little mysterious to me. What are these parts they are supplying to the government? How does a company get to become a supplier to the D.O.D.? Is supplying parts to the U.S. Government a good idea for a small-sized or medium-sized machining company? I got some answers from today’s guest on the podcast, Mike Topolewski Jr. Mike is Vice President of Sales and Operations at Perigee Manufacturing Company in Detroit, Michigan. Perigee is a three generation, screw machine…
Author: Noah Graff
Just got back from Dunkin’ with my semi-daily Iced Americano with oat milk. Made sure to get the phone out for my rewards! Not sure yet how much I’m actually being rewarded or how much I care. I currently have rewards apps or rewards cards for several eating establishments I frequent: Panda Express (I promise I only go there once a week), Dunkin’ Donuts (I know it’s a world chain, but I have to admit they have the best Cold Brew and Iced Americanos), as well as two local Chicago establishments: Vaca, a vegan ice cream/coffee spot near my home,…
You may have noticed that I often talk about friction on this podcast. That’s because everyone has to fight friction in business—and there is A LOT of friction in the manufacturing business. Friction from time consuming stuff. Friction from stuff being too hard to figure out. Friction from stuff we’re not qualified to do or just don’t want to do. My guest on today’s podcast, Constantine Ivanov, founded a business called DigiFabster that alleviates friction for manufacturers, providing features like instant quoting, a CRM, and payment platforms that are specifically tailored for different manufacturing types. I loved our conversation. Along…
Today’s interview is an old favorite. It’s a story about a young entrepreneur and his father producing minuscule parts with no other employees than themselves and Dan’s wife. On today’s podcast we continue our season about Swiss machining. Our guest is Dan Rudolph, co-owner and founder of Rudolph LLC. Rudolph LLC produces medical parts as small as .1 millimeter on Citizen lathes. The company has only three staff members, Dan, his wife, and his father, but Dan says he has no plans to hire employees and the company continues to grow. Scroll down to read more and listen to the…
Why would anybody buy a CNC multi-spindle for $2 million? Or $3 million for that matter? My guest on today’s podcast, Richard Kingsbury, has the answer. Richard is Managing Director of the Kingsbury Engineering Division, England’s INDEX distributor. In this interview, Richard gives a history lesson of screw machining. We discuss how you sell a $2 million dollar CNC multi-spindle. Most importantly, we talk about how a machining company can make lots of money with these Ferraris of multi-spindles. I know, I should call them Porsches as they’re made in Germany. In any case, INDEXs are so choice! If you…
Today’s podcast is Part 2 of our interview with Dave Thuro, second-generation owner of Thuro Metal Products. In this episode, Dave discusses his growth philosophies. He believes in aggressively acquiring as many job opportunities as possible, but then saying no to most of them. The company tries to acquire at least two long term accounts per year that will bring in monthly sales of $50,000 to $100,000. Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Dave Thuro. Dave also discusses his hiring practices. He believes in hiring the majority of his employees at the entry level and training them from…
We are going back to the archives this week with an interview from our first year of the show! Great story and great company. ********* Today’s podcast is part one of a two-part interview with Dave Thuro, second-generation owner of Thuro Metal Products, a successful job shop in Long Island, New York. The business produces parts for a variety of industries, including aerospace, fuel injectors, HVAC, bearing and linear and, more recently, optics and lighting. Scroll down to listen to the podcast. We spoke to Dave about his equipment choices, focusing on Swiss automatics and multi-turret CNC lathes. We also…
I’ve interviewed a lot of interesting business coaches for this podcast, and all the coaches had one thing in common. They focused on coaching a company’s owner or management, rather than working with everyone at the company. But my guest on today’s show, Tim Drinkwater, founder of Accurate Machine Products in Janesville, Wisconsin, hired a coach to be available for all eight of his employees. He says the coaching has provided his people with helpful guidance professionally and personally and has had a positive impact on his own personal growth. The interview really resonated with me as I personally have…
This week on Swarfcast, we’ve been thinking a lot about some of the exciting tech that we saw last month at IMTS. One thing that always stands out to us are the robots. As our recent podcasts have touched on the topic of AI, we thought it would be fitting to reshare an interview we did with George Konidaris, co-founder of Realtime Robotics. A new podcast is on its way soon, but in the meantime we hope you enjoy this one again. Seems like right now every podcast is doing an interview centered around artificial intelligence. But I waited until…