11: Robotics in Manufacturing - with Daniel Rogge

Unknown: 00:00:14

Lori Highby Chris Harrington and Aaron Courtney, three broads, bringing you stories and strategies exploring manufacturing topics that

Lori Highby: 00:00:55

Right so right now we're talking about songs. Is that what we're talking about beforehand?

Erin: 00:01:03

Yeah, actually, our intro song made me think of it like, you know, music and music that really kind of gets you going. And I was wondering

Lori Highby: 00:01:24

I can start. Yeah,

Kris: 00:01:27

I actually do love music. But I always forget the names of songs. So I am a person that I will actually take breaks during the day, get in the

Erin: 00:01:57

I love it. Okay, awesome. Worried? Yeah,

Lori Highby: 00:02:01

so not necessarily. There's too many songs to pick one. I'm just gonna do that. But what I will tell you is that I my most played

Erin: 00:02:39

know, complaints I put out. Yeah, music you can drink to like it. Hipster cocktail party. Awesome. I've had on just replay lately, this song

Erin: 00:03:19

time with us today because we have Daniel rogie on the show. He's the CEO of torma Welcome Daniel Rogge. We're gonna call you rogie today.

Unknown: 00:03:30

That sounds perfect for having me.

Erin: 00:03:34

So, so Rogge you're the CEO of tormach. And you have a diverse background that includes experience as a professional metal fabricator,

Erin: 00:04:10

awesome. Welcome so much today.

Unknown: 00:04:12

Well, thanks for having me. Helping people make stuff is a lot of fun, as it turns out.

Erin: 00:04:18

Before I get started with questions, if there is anybody in our audience that just isn't quite familiar with Tormach. Can you just give us

Unknown: 00:04:35

We design, sell, and support tools that help people make stuff, largely smaller computer controlled tools. So, milling machines, lathes,

Unknown: 00:05:15

were really hard to use the tools that were available, you know, the user interfaces are pretty abysmal, and they were super expensive. And, and so,

Unknown: 00:05:50

smaller, but still able to make things out of metal much easier to use much more affordable. Work on single phase power, the kind of household power

Erin: 00:06:09

Well, I just love that. I think I you know, I think back to my shop class in high school, and just how much I loved it. And I didn't pursue it,

Erin: 00:06:39

story of one of your customers is just like lights you up? Someone who's just making cool shit?

Unknown: 00:06:47

Can I tell a couple? I'll

Erin: 00:06:49

yeah.

Unknown: 00:06:52

We have customers that do all sorts of wild stuff with our equipment. Like when you think of a CNC mill, you think, Oh, well, it's

Unknown: 00:07:25

equipment that isn't even machining. So NASA uses one of our milling machines with a fourth access to wind, antenna coils. There's just endless.

Unknown: 00:07:56

to the hotel, and there's a pool, and there's a wheelchair lift that helps people get out of the water pressure like those. That's a business. Those

Unknown: 00:08:30

and he had one of our lathes. And he had automated it. So it was kind of running for two hours at a time by itself making a piece cutting it off and

Unknown: 00:08:55

these pieces made. And so I'm kind of double dipping, because I'm able to work eight hours a day at work from my garage, and every two hours take a

Erin: 00:09:12

Yeah, yeah.

Lori Highby: 00:09:15

Pursue

Unknown: 00:09:16

one of their passions or one of their dreams without having to quit the day job or take that giant leap.

Erin: 00:09:23

Yeah,

Kris: 00:09:24

I'm curious how often we're all good. Do you know what your customers are going to do with a machine before they purchase it? Is that something

Unknown: 00:09:40

We don't have a sales team. More and more people do their research online and buy stuff without even talking to people. We have like tech

Unknown: 00:10:15

It's very much customers come to the website. And if they call us up, we ended up talking to them. I don't, um, it kind of varies by industry. Okay,

Lori Highby: 00:10:52

Oh, no. Yeah, not. Yeah.

Unknown: 00:10:54

And then also, we, you know, we have a little web form when people are looking to purchase we ask them what they're interested in and what

Lori Highby: 00:11:11

well, that just keeps playing in my head. I keep thinking Austin Powers right now, I'm sure all of you are thinking, just keep the

Lori Highby: 00:11:45

around that diverse workforce, there's conversation around automation leading the way. And even policy being the linchpin for really securing US

Unknown: 00:12:15

Oh, how much? How much time do we have?

Erin: 00:12:20

To take all the time you need?

Unknown: 00:12:22

First off? I don't know. Like, if I get that right on the table, I'll give you my opinion. But it's completely, you know, the pandemic has

Unknown: 00:12:58

ton of people either reshoring or nearshoring. During the pandemic. And I think part of that is, is the, you know, continued stuff that was set in

Unknown: 00:13:34

shipping costs, the increase in time, the transit time with port congestion, China's COVID lockdown policies, you know, a lot of people have

Erin: 00:14:04

Yeah, you're

Unknown: 00:14:08

gonna be a sound like a strange answer. Right.

Erin: 00:14:11

Let's have it. Yeah. stream channel Chancers.

Unknown: 00:14:15

We could come up with a national health plan or socialized medicine.

Erin: 00:14:21

Tell us more. Yeah.

Lori Highby: 00:14:23

Definitely leaning into this

Unknown: 00:14:31

I talked about that person that didn't have to quit his day job in order to become basically a cottage industry. He was he's manufacturing

Unknown: 00:15:02

businesses. There's a lot of there's a lot of demand for manufacturing here, more demand than there is capacity. And there are plenty of small

Unknown: 00:15:37

do something about that. But I actually think that would be helpful for manufacturing the United States.

Lori Highby: 00:15:44

I love that answer, actually, and I don't want to go into a big conversation around this, but I've never understood why health care is

Unknown: 00:16:04

A lot of it went back to the labor shortage after World War Two and companies competing on that. But that's a different,

Lori Highby: 00:16:11

totally different topic. Totally different podcasts.

Unknown: 00:16:16

The other thing that the other saw, and I I hinted at this, I think we're I hope, in fact, one of the things Tormach wants to do is bring

Unknown: 00:16:54

20 years, that became less certain and so we want to bring stuff back to the United States. But you remember when the pandemic in lockdowns

Unknown: 00:17:26

variants have generally been less than I imagined on Omicron variant with the severity of the Delta variant. And that could we could see things go

Erin: 00:17:44

Oh, that's a mixed. That's a lot.

Erin: 00:17:53

That's a lot to process. But I think the the takeaway, I love what you said at the end at the beginning of your answer what no one can predict the

Erin: 00:18:24

adaptability, and you know, guaranteed health care as part of that, just that you have the ability to respond to the circumstances, that's what

Erin: 00:18:56

And let's take care of each other. So

Kris: 00:18:59

I definitely say preach Rogi preach. We need more entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, help this country grow. I'm sure not just this country, but

Kris: 00:19:36

know, right to repair is something that has been a bit controversial over the years and the b2b companies that you know, certainly I am in touch with

Unknown: 00:20:12

Well, we're, we're big fans of the right to repair, which means different things to different people, right? I mean, I will confess that

Unknown: 00:20:42

we, we don't design our own contactors, we just go by contactors. And if that contactor is not available on a 20, amp, double pole, you know,

Unknown: 00:21:15

replacing resistors, or Opto, isolators, or relays on boards that have gone bad over the years, which surprises me, because in my world, that's not

Unknown: 00:21:49

other industrial equipment, it drives them nuts, I mean, you spend $150,000 on a machine, and then you're told that you can't bring in the company, you

Kris: 00:22:17

Yeah, I definitely like to say that technical data is currency today. And I do think that when people shop for capital equipment or large assets

Kris: 00:22:50

They're They're creative, they have ideas about something that they want to build in and put out into the world. And they may have the interest in even

Unknown: 00:23:08

some of them, some of them. Yeah, for sure. You know, another thing that I think goes when you think of right to repair, you do think of

Unknown: 00:23:43

with an update, whether you'd want it or not, you're just kind of forced to take it which you might get driven nuts by word getting updated. And then

Unknown: 00:24:13

something. Or maybe you got to really advance you know, I think Tesla perhaps is able to do a network network firmware update. But in our world,

Unknown: 00:24:51

try to move that way too, because software is increasingly a really important part of industrial equipment.

Kris: 00:24:58

Yeah, love that.

Erin: 00:25:02

Well, the this has been super interesting. And I am going to confess I, I learned a term when I was doing my research for this podcast. And I

Unknown: 00:25:21

The democratization of manufacturing. To me, it just means making things available to not just deep pocketed corporations, but to individuals

Unknown: 00:26:06

CNC machines, and you can make those available to people that are able to fund a modest Kickstarter project, or are able to afford a couple $100 A

Unknown: 00:26:44

bring manufacturing back. And I don't mean like the really fancy automation, when you see like the robot doing assembly and it's got a

Unknown: 00:27:21

assembly plant with these crazy robots coming in to spot weld the car frame, right. But if you go to any of the small businesses in the little

Unknown: 00:27:59

quality control is worse than robotic welding. And if we can get robotic welding to a place where you don't need a two year degree in Industrial

Unknown: 00:28:37

in this country right now. And for some welding tests, it's not a fun job, right. And so if we can make this make a product that's easy enough to

Unknown: 00:29:14

the reaction that we got on automated anything.

Erin: 00:29:20

Yeah, well, I love that idea of democratization of manufacturing, both for the individual level to give freedom to the individual to

Erin: 00:29:59

so Oh rogie this time we wrap up. All round we do round robin, and you've complete the sentence. I just learned that. So let's start with Laurie, and

Lori Highby: 00:30:16

Yeah, so I'm really like, I don't know what the word is your brains not working tape. But anyways, I'm like, I'm digital. Like, that's

Lori Highby: 00:30:49

and marketers say, this is where I need to be you. Well, the United States Post Office actually conducted some research and found that millennials

Lori Highby: 00:31:19

whole Old School, snail mail still is an active way to get in front of your audience. So I thought that was fascinating.

Kris: 00:31:27

It is fascinating. I always think that I love getting a letter in the mail. You know, I personally, am a Gen X. So when I get ads, it's just rip

Lori Highby: 00:31:49

Absolutely. I'll include the link to their findings in the show notes, too. Yeah, please do.

Erin: 00:31:54

Perfect. Thank you. Chris, what about you? Yeah, so

Kris: 00:31:59

I just learned a new quote that I that really resonated with me and my morning reading, so I'm going to read it. Mistakes are a fact of life.

Kris: 00:32:30

with this quote, she's an American poet, born in 1943. Her most famous poem is Nikki Rosa, I haven't had a chance to look at the poem yet. But again,

Unknown: 00:32:54

very true, not just personally, but for business relationships, you know, I mean, we saw a number of machines, and they're complicated

Erin: 00:33:10

right? Response. Exactly.

Lori Highby: 00:33:15

As soon as you said that this popped in my head, I had a hockey coach, I would always say, fix your mistake. And then just like i

Erin: 00:33:29

Right, right. There's an assumption there that a mistake will happen, which is almost more helpful than like, if you make mistakes.

Lori Highby: 00:33:37

Perfect. We're not perfect. Yeah, that's good.

Erin: 00:33:39

That's a good one. Yeah. And what about you? Um, well, I see. As per usual, I'm a little off in the deep end here. But I just learned Quakers.

Erin: 00:34:15

and just continue their worship by being deeply respectful to other people. And I just think I thought that was really interesting to learn about their

Unknown: 00:34:31

Are you all familiar with FIRST Robotics? high school level? Oh, no. You'll have to have to google that.

Erin: 00:34:40

Right. Okay. First Robotics. It's a robotics challenge

Unknown: 00:34:44

for for high school level students. And in general, they, they find out what the challenge is in January, and then they have six weeks to

Unknown: 00:35:33

minutes. And if you look at the YouTube video, okay, pretty amazing if you just YouTube FIRST Robotics Frisbee. These high school kids built those

Erin: 00:35:49

That's awesome. Is that a national competition

Unknown: 00:35:52

or is that a national competition? Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Erin: 00:35:56

Okay, so all the schools can participate. Cool. I can't wait to check that out things. Awesome, everybody. Well, just a pleasure to chat with

Erin: 00:36:34

all.

Kris: 00:36:35

Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. See.

Unknown: 00:36:47

This wraps up today's broadcast. If you're looking to shake up the status quo at your organization, or just want to connect with these broads.