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Host Sean Frost is joined by experts in the manufacturing industry to discuss bringing big ideas to life. Join us every episode for a deep dive into manufacturing trends, processes, innovation, and how to be successful in the ever-changing world of manufacturing.
Ep19_SeanFrost
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Sean Frost: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Inspiring Innovation, the podcast that helps fuel the minds of our product engineers, our product managers, our buyers, our sourcing specialists across the medical, safety, aviation, and power sports industries, excited to have you guys here for another episode of Inspiring Innovation.
And I'm your host, Sean Frost, coming to you each month, diving deep into the world of manufacturing and talking about strategies that shape the future of our industry. So we've tended to have. [00:01:00] Different guests experts in supply chain, product development, plant managers legal experts, you name it.
So it's been a fun ride and I appreciate everybody that tunes into the podcast and joins us. Manufacturing is such an interesting industry and custom manufacturing is complex. We always shoot to simplify that on this show and appreciate our audiences, our customers and the industries and the people that they serve.
This is state of the art safety equipment. This is life saving devices. This is, the oxygen masks that come down in our airplanes that we hope we never have to see. Join us, every second Tuesday of the month subscribe, engage, comment, let us know what you want to see and what you want to hear, and we'll try to keep the guests coming.
So, with that, I'm just going to walk through some of the, Best lessons that have [00:02:00] come out of some of the podcasts that we've had over the last Seven months or so. So, I'm going to go all the way back to episode six which was crafting a strong culture. And we had our CEO, Kent Lammers on for that episode.
Some of the things that he said, one of the best lessons I think is how culture is one of the most important elements of any company. It's not just about the dollars and cents and it's about some of the intangibles. So he talked. About our 75 year history, which he's been here for almost 40 years of, which was pretty inspiring to hear that, you know, we came from making checkbook covers to where we are now making life saving medical devices.
So, one of the things that he pointed out was how important processes are. And I am grateful that our director of supply chain, who is up in [00:03:00] Nova Scotia, Canada. I call her our Canadian advisor is really, really an expert at developing our processes. And so our team's actually gone through a really big initiative where we were going through all the work instructions that we have for training our new sales team members and really determining.
You know, what needed to be refined? What do we not have a work instructions for? And one of the things that you know, our customers may be excited to hear, but was really a light bulb for me and how important processes are, is our customer information requests. Process, which we now have a work instruction for.
This is something that, you know, we've, I've been in this role for three years now, and a lot of us have been doing it our own ways and saving them in silos. And so now we've got [00:04:00] a common place where these things are saved and a common process for how we go about it, who we go to for what information.
And I think, you know, everybody. Was doing that and found it the right way, but There's no excuse for us not to have the best practices laid out for everybody. And so, I found that to be a very valuable effort. She's doing that throughout our organization and the efficiencies that we'll gain in the ways that our processes will basically merge between departments to make the handoffs cleaner and the, the gray areas more black and white, I think are something that everyone.
in any position in any company could really benefit from. So, I think that's a really important part of culture. I'll, share an impromptu story about the person that helps put this podcast together. His name's Zachary Ebert and he is new to our company. He's [00:05:00] been here for a little over
a month or maybe two now. And he comes to us from another manufacturing company and said there's been more employee engagement in the first week that he was here than the three years he was at his previous gig. So, one of the things that We take pride in as our wellness initiatives.
And we have basically incentives for people to be healthy. And we have programs that challenge us in different ways, you know, during this wellness initiative, that's about a month long and so we had workout challenges basically where we had different teams of people that had to work out together for, 10 minutes throughout the day. It was fun. It was competitive. I think we had a dodgeball game one week. We had a team walk one week. So just really great things that enhance the culture at Polo Custom Products. And another Story that I wanted to tell from the eyes of our [00:06:00] customer.
We got to take them to all three of our domestic locations in Iowa, in Mississippi, and in Topeka. And each one had their own unique. culture. It was clear that each plant had their own unique culture, but there were some things that she thought we could share amongst different cultures. And it was clear that this company was very envious of the level of closeness that our employees shared.
The fact that we care about our associates, you know, that people knew our names when we're walking through the plants and wanted to talk to us. They were really envious because this particular customer said we've bought companies like yours and just squeeze the joy out of them. It's funny to me, you know, how there are things that impact culture, like a barbecue where executives are passing out food to people. [00:07:00] When those things go away, people will talk about it. 10 years later about, the good times and the things that they used to do. Those little things, I feel like that's the benefit of being a smaller company and we are growing, but we're trying to really maintain that level of culture and keep those values there because when we care about one another, it makes us happier to take care of our customers.
And at the end of the day, that's what we're here to do is to support the growth of our customers. So, one of the things that that particular customer said when they were in our plants was, How much confidence our associates have that we're building the products. She'd been in auditing before, so she wanted to really stump the associates.
She wanted to ask questions. What are you looking for in quality? Where's your instructions? And [00:08:00] she noticed they'd have to look for them. They were close by. They knew where they were, but they didn't ever skip a beat. In terms of talking to her about the product that they were making, telling her exactly what they were looking for to make sure, you know, and they knew what quality issues could arise.
You know, they all have a bill of manufacturing that has a quality history list for anything that's ever gone wrong on these products, they're trained on how to interpret the drawings, they're trained on the labor steps, and so, so it was clear to her the level of confidence that our associates had in their jobs, but also the pride that they had.
I mean, when she went on the lines where they were making her products, they asked a lot of questions that were really interesting about, you know, Are these on Air Force One, you know, or, or, you know, the ones that have this differentiator, are they used differently? And so you could just tell that there's curiosity and [00:09:00] pride in the associates that are doing the work at Polo Custom Products and they really envied that, but appreciated the tours and the opportunity to really get to know Polo Custom Products on an intimate level.
One of the neatest things that has happened recently is that we've had suppliers and competitors reach out about potential opportunities for employment at Polo. They They're for one reason or another potentially not happy where they are and, and they want to work somewhere like Polo Custom Products because they've had such a great experience working with people in our supply chain department or our marketing department or whatever it may be, whatever position they're in, they just appreciate it.
The ethics, they appreciate the down to earth nature of our [00:10:00] executives. They appreciate the culture that is just contagious that they can feel, you know, even in the remote meetings that take place in today's business culture. And, and, you know, we're, we're consistent in what we're telling our customers, our suppliers, our our partners.
And, and so it's been. Really gratifying to reach out to them, to talk to them about, you know, just what they like about their positions, what they like about the industry and seeing if there's a place for them at Polo custom products down the road. But I'd say that's very rewarding when you've got a culture that has a reputation among the industry.
We're proud of that at Polo. We're proud of the, the people that really make. Today's culture, what it was, we're proud of the people that came before us that set that foundation. And we're, we're grateful that we have the [00:11:00] opportunity to keep improving on it and to, to make it a culture that, that people want to be a part of.
And so, it is incredibly important in today's business culture where a lot of people have experienced turnover. There are a lot of people have burnout. A lot of people aren't as engaged as, as they were, you know, pre COVID. And, and ~we~ are really doing such a great job at, at Polo of improving engagement and retaining our talent and recruiting talent and attracting talent because of the fact that our Our team really cares about each other and ~we~ want to see ourselves do well and develop.
And so it's a, it's a great place to work and it's a great place to enjoy doing business with our customers, whatever that looks like. So, so culture is incredibly important and, and I'd recommend going back [00:12:00] to episode six and hearing from our CEO and president, Kent Lammers.
Now I'm going to take the opportunity to go back to episode seven with Alan Frost about developing a strong workforce. There was something that I'd never heard of until that podcast, I think is beneficial for any manager. Who's thinking about talent development and succession planning.
And he mentioned it was a, an old GE strategy. I think he said it went back to the Jack Welch days, but it was called the nine box. And it was rating people on their potential. and their performance. So if someone is a high performer with high potential, then you want to develop them differently than a high performer with low potential.
So an example of that was like a high performer with low potential may be [00:13:00] somebody that's been in their department for 10 or 15 years and is really a performer, really an expert, but they wouldn't make a good, you know, director. They're not potentially a strategic person of no fault of their own. They are very good at what they do and they are valuable to the company.
They are what he called a solid citizen ranking. And so their development plan would look different than a high performer, high potential. And he talked about A specific individual who ended up becoming the CEO of Darden Restaurants. And they said that they developed this person for 10 years.
And they had them basically do almost every single function and every restaurant under the umbrella of Darden. And so he was a cook, a manager, a server you know, served in the different departments of legal and [00:14:00] HR so that he had a very comprehensive picture of the company and what their associates were dealing with on a daily basis.
So he was well prepared for the CEO role and did really great things as the leader of that company. So I thought that was something that any. Manager could really take away is have a development plan for everyone and think about, you know, where their potential is, where they can grow and work with them on, on figuring out, you know, what motivates them and how they can best develop and how you can best help them develop.
If you're really in the mood to be terrified, I would suggest going back to episode nine with our vice president of IT, Rob Ward, and learning about protecting your business from hackers. He had so many different examples of ways that. Hackers are basically socially engineering [00:15:00] ways to get into your system.
Because, you know, hackers are looking at things like browsing LinkedIn and seeing somebody new to the company, what position they're in and pretending to be somebody, you know, from IT from maybe another location and, you know, asking you to go in and.
Update your laptop, you know, go to this site, put in your credentials, like you to download this program to update your laptop. And then they may sit, the bad actors can be patient once they're in, you know, they may want to withdraw data or money, but they don't want to trigger your system. So they want to, you know, lay low for a little bit while they get ransomware, intellectual property or other tools that they can basically threaten to shut down your business if you don't pay them over.
So, he had lots of scary stories especially, you know, AI is such a big deal these days. And, and he mentioned, [00:16:00] An AI voicemail where they took, recordings of a CEO that had been on, many interviews and they took his voice and basically left a message with his assistant to transfer X amount of money into bank account number X, Y, Z, the assistant heard the voicemail and did it because apparently that was not a practice outside of what she, you know, that is a request that had kind of come through, but, it sounded like, sounded like her boss.
And and so there's all sorts of scary tales that will occur. Also encourage you to listen to other parts of that episode to to have a recovery plan for an attack because it's, he basically says it's, it's not, it's not if you're going to get hacked. It's a matter of when you get hacked and what your response is.
So, Really good listen if you're, you know, maybe listen to that around Halloween, which will be coming [00:17:00] up when, when this is out. So, and then the last episode, I just want to take some Things away from is episode 13 with our plant manager from Mississippi, Greg Brown. I really enjoyed that conversation.
You know, we, we talk about supply chain, we talk about product development. You know, we, we talk about customer service. We talk about our customers a lot. And in this episode really tied everything together. You know, for taking it from a part number that we're looking at and volumes and things like that to, you know.
Cutting machines and die clickers and raw materials being cut into patterns and how that flows through cutting to maybe embroidery or silk screening and, and blends out onto our floors where, you know, then, then these materials are either sewn or radio frequency sealed. And, and the different [00:18:00] ways that we, you know, Could look at applying logos to our products.
I mean, he talks about vinyly vinyl material that we've imprinted logos on for some of our customers or screen printing or embossing in In a forming room and different, different types of heat transfers. There's so many different ways that we've been able to custom, make the logos that go on to our products for our customers.
So, you know, we've had customers that have tried to categorize us so that they can market our capabilities within their large OEMs. That's, you know, the, the customers that we work with are some of the biggest companies in the world. And, and so they have, you know, these global commodity managers and [00:19:00] we're a celebrated supplier where we.
win quality awards or collaboration awards at, at their summits, basically their supplier summits. And, and so she was trying to categorize us in a way that fit within their system and their system, you know, basically wanted it narrowed down to textiles or to one Of our capabilities and she was just trying to find which category would give us the most bandwidth within their organization.
And then, you know, when we're in this Mississippi facility, we come across Sandblasted hoods where we're vulcanizing rubber. And I said, Oh, well, that's, that makes it a lot more easy to narrow down what Polo Custom Products does, doesn't it? And~ so~ that, that was fun. It was a really good laugh.
Really, he really brings it all home talking about [00:20:00] how we ensure quality for our, for our customers. I mean, all the way from training an associate on the bomb to the quality history sheets to how we interpret, how they interpret drawings because of that roving inspections for quality personnel. And and, you know, some parts we.
Inspect a hundred percent for customers. So, he really breaks down and ties it all into together to say, you know, these are all of these pieces. This is, this is what product development makes, and this is how it goes out onto the floor to make the products that That end up in our hospitals, that end up you know, on our warfighters or our first responders or on motorcycles or other, other power sports.
So, it really tied it all together for me. If you are interested in [00:21:00] manufacturing I would highly encourage listening to Greg Brown, our, our plant manager in our Louisville, Mississippi location.
Well, thank you for tuning in to another episode of Inspiring Innovation. I hope you enjoyed some of these lessons ~and~ some some new stories that I chose to share today and I hope you are encouraged to potentially go back and listen to Rob Ward or Greg Brown or Kent Lammers or Al Frost talk about some of their expertise within our industry.
And I hope it's something that you can take back into your workplace and that you can use to, to enhance your careers and your teams and and ultimately create. Better products that go out and make a difference in the world. So thank you for listening to another episode of Inspiring Innovation. We post this every second Tuesday of the month.
Please don't hesitate to like, share, comment and engage with our, our content. We are, we appreciate [00:22:00] that and really appreciate you listening this far through. Thank you.