Today’s show is the first episode in our new season about hiring and retaining good employees in machining companies. Our guest is Scott Eighmy, co-owner and CEO of American Turned Products, a medium-sized precision machining company in Erie, Pennsylvania. Scott says his company is struggling like many manufacturing businesses right now to hire new good employees, so he needs to get the most out of the people he already has. He says small acts of recognition and making employees feel heard is key to maintaining a happy and productive workforce. Scroll down to listen to the podcast. Or listen on…
Author: Noah Graff
Yesterday evening my wife, Stephanie, and I stopped to get gas. As I fueled up, a man named Danny, on the other side of the pumps fueling his own car, struck up a conversation with me. You know that special breed of people who walk into a room, almost always smiling, beaming their positive energy onto everyone? Danny is one of those guys. He commented to me about the crazy high gas prices in Illinois, currently in the $3.30 per gallon range. I told him about the gas prices in California, where I was last week, which are over $4.00.…
On today’s show we’re talking about how to set up machine tools efficiently. Our guest is Paul Van Metre, co-founder of ProShop ERP. ProShop produces a comprehensive web-based and totally paperless shop management system for small to medium manufacturing companies. Paul says that using a few best practices, guided by ProShop’s management system, can reduce a machine setup time up to 50%. Scroll down to listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts or your favorite app. Main Points Paul shares his background. He grew up in New York and studied mechanical engineering in college.…
What the heck did I do last month? What did I do last week? What did I do today? Do you ever ask yourself those questions? The last three years, I’ve written in a diary nearly every day. It takes me about 10 to 30 minutes to recount the day’s main events and then ramble about my reflections and feelings. I also try to take a selfie photo each day to go along with the diary entries that I type into my iPhone or computer. I write because I want to make sure the memory of each specific day is…
Our guest on today’s podcast is Christian Busch, author of the new book, The Serendipity Mindset: the Art and Science of Finding Good Luck. Have you ever noticed how certain people always seem to get lucky breaks? According to Christian these lucky people have a skill for recognizing luck when it materializes. In his book he guides readers on how they can create luck, recognize it when it appears, and then turn it into positive outcomes. After hearing Christian interviewed on another podcast a few months ago, I was so fascinated I started listening to his book myself. My job…
Happy Memorial Day from the Swarfcast team! We’re enjoying some family time this holiday weekend as the summer weather is finally upon us. We will return next Wednesday with a fresh blog for your enjoyment. In the meantime, tune in to a Best of episode from November 2020. Today’s podcast is the final segment of our season about companies who produce their own products. Our guest is Ian Schon, founder of Schon DSGN, a company that makes high quality metallic pens machined on Citizen CNC Swiss lathes. One of Ian’s core philosophies for the production and marketing of his pens…
Today’s podcast is Part IV in our series about how machining companies find new work. Our guest is Tony Uphoff, CEO of Thomas, the parent company of Thomasnet.com, an online directory of over 500,000 North American manufacturers that was founded 123 years ago. Thomas filters its listings into 72,000 categories, which enables buyers and suppliers to pinpoint the exact partners who fit their needs. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast, or listen with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts or your favorite app. Origin of Thomas The idea for Thomas Register came about in the…
Wednesday I sold a LICO LNT-42S CNC lathe to an old customer (assuming I’m not jinxing the deal by writing about it now). I confess, a month ago a European customer agreed to buy this same machine and its mate, but then 24 hours later he backed out! Wait, did I have a similar story in my last blog? But I digress. The story of this LICO goes back a bit. A few months ago, a different customer sent me an email out of the blue, telling me he was interested in buying this machine model. I suppose he contacted…
This season we’re talking about how your machine shop attracts new customers. Today, we wanted to share a podcast from our second season which we feel provides a useful solution to finding fresh business. Tune in to our interview with Greg and share your own experience with manufacturing networks in the comments below. Thanks for listening. Today’s podcast centers around a company that provides capacity for machining firms that lack resources to meet clients’ needs. Our guest is Greg Paulsen, Director of Application Engineering for Xometry. Xometry provides manufacturing on demand using an artificially intelligent quoting system and a manufacturing…
For the third episode of our season about how machining companies acquire new work, I interviewed Jay Sauder, owner of Sauder Machine in Plymouth, Ohio. Sauder makes a variety of precision components such as casings for mechanical pocket watches and wheel cylinders for horse drawn buggies driven by Amish people. Sauder Machine has no sales team nor a social media presence, yet it has a diversified, profitable customer base that continues to grow through great networking. Jay Sauder told me about how doing great work and establishing great relationships with customers has been the fuel to keep his business rapidly…