The Art of Precision Manufacturing: Where Human Skill Still Beats Automation
Manufacturing Happy Hour
Recorded live at Artisan Works, an art-focused event space in Rochester, New York, this episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour was part of the show's Rust Belt Renaissance Tour and was held with Fathom Digital Manufacturing during its regional Manufacturing Exchange. Precision-machined components were displayed gallery-style around the room. Host Chris Luecke used the setting to frame the central question: even after decades of automation, how much of precision manufacturing is still an art that depends on human intuition?
Three guests answered from different positions. Matthew Bradley, a program director at Moog, is building a new machine shop. James Greer, lead sourcing representative at X-Bow Systems, has walked the floors of hundreds of suppliers across the country. Chris Brown, SVP of sales at Fathom, has worked inside many manufacturing companies. Their shared position was that automation is a tool for specific problems, and that tactile skill, institutional knowledge, and workplace culture remain central to the work.
Who Was on Stage
Greer described his role as having grown from supplier development into lead sourcing. It began with metallic parts and has expanded to propellants, chemicals, energetics, composites, and, since October, additive manufacturing. His plain description of X-Bow was "we build rockets." The company started in 2016, vertically integrates its systems, and focuses on "speed and producibility and scale" as it tries to take on the solid rocket motor industry.
Bradley said his group at Moog is "in the business of building factories." Over the past couple of years it built a new 150,000-square-foot machine shop and is filling it with about 100 machines. These replace the existing shop and include automation systems and advanced machinery. He saw the project as a chance to rethink how Moog makes its parts, not just to swap in new equipment.
Brown described Fathom as seven manufacturing sites offering 25 manufacturing services, from additive manufacturing to sheet metal. All are highly certified and staffed with skilled labor, and they take on "some of the most complex and challenging parts."
Tolerances in the Millionths and Parts You Have to Feel
Bradley explained that Moog is a motion-control technology company. It makes components for applications where things must move reliably: aircraft, space systems, submarines, and medical devices such as pumps. Some of its parts are machined toward tolerances in the millionths of an inch. He admitted the company sometimes struggles with whether such tolerances can even be measured.
For Bradley, the art lies in tasks that cannot be automated because they require a person to feel what is happening. His example came from flight controls. When a servo valve is assembled, interference-fit parts go together within thousandths of an inch. A technician turns a device to join the pieces, and if they feel a click, something is wrong. Moog automates where it has "figured out the secret sauce" well enough to write it down and turn it into a procedure. For some precision motion-control work, Bradley said, the company hasn't found a way to do that, and he doesn't think it will. In his view, a human will always need to be there to feel and understand what is going on.
231 Machine Shops and a 60-Second Response
Greer approached the question from the shop floor. He said he had visited 231 machine shops in just over two and a half years, from Oregon and Seattle to Miami, Augusta (Maine), and Los Angeles. He added that several Rochester shops had contacted him in 2024 and he hadn't yet managed to visit them.
His picture of the art centered on a "gold standard" shop he once visited. A large screen on the wall showed every machine running. While he sat in the waiting room, one machine went red. Greer said he timed it on his watch. Within exactly 60 seconds a door opened and three engineers ran onto the floor, which he compared to Monsters, Inc. The machine was running again within five minutes. When he asked about it, he learned it had been an error. The lesson he took was about attention to detail and how much an idle machine can hurt a shop. He also recalled photos he had collected of machined parts he considered "beautiful works of art," and said being in an art space made him think about the work from that angle.
Novel Parts and Institutional Knowledge
Brown located the art in novel designs. Making something for the first time draws on institutional knowledge, which he said is hard to transfer and hard to pass down. The skilled person is the one who can say they have seen this problem before, perhaps in pieces across three different jobs, and think they know how to solve it. He argued that a simulation can't do that, and that CAD-to-CAM programming won't catch all the details of a new part. Referring to Greer's story, he said problems like that happen at machines everywhere, and "I don't care how much AI you throw at it. The human brain is what needs to solve that problem."
Greer added that across the country, when such problems come up, the less experienced machinist usually goes to the shop's senior machinist. He also said the age range of machinists nationally is wide. He meets "really young geniuses" as well as very experienced men and women still at the machines.
Where Automation Pays Off, and Where It Bites
Asked where automation adds the most value, Brown said it tends to be applied where it is easiest: high-volume, repetitive work that doesn't need an artist watching and that a company doesn't want to tie up labor on. He warned that this is also where automation "tends to bite people the most." He had worked at manufacturers that automated everything, including the very first setup, and said he couldn't begin to describe how much scrap those facilities produced.
His advice was that the analysis can't stop at ROI. ROI will always look good above a certain quantity. Companies also need to ask what can go wrong and what sensors are needed, including human ones. People have ears, minds, and noses that can smell burning lubricant and prompt an adjustment. Brown said no sensor will tell you a lubricant is slightly off the way someone with 15, 20, or 30 years of experience can.
Moog's Case: Automation to Solve Three Problems
Bradley described Moog's approach as deliberate. The company is not automating "for the sake of doing it" or to have the most impressive system; it is automating to solve problems. He named three.
The first is staffing. His division has about 330 machinists and expects to double in size over the next ten years. The Buffalo area has apprenticeship programs and partnerships with local colleges and training centers, but Bradley said "they can't keep up." In his words: "If we're going to double in size over the next 10 years, we can't go make or find another 330 machinists." Because much of what those machinists do is "on the level of art," he called them a critical, precious resource that can't simply be produced. Automation is meant to take lower-skill work that doesn't need an artist and turn it into a method a system can run. He stressed that this isn't meant to minimize anyone's work; the goal is to use a scarce resource as wisely as possible.
The second problem is flow. After 75 years, and 40 years of making parts for the same platforms, Moog still runs a batch-and-queue job shop that Bradley said "looks like a plate of spaghetti." The third is aging equipment that needs replacing.
Together, these led the group to rethink production. More capable machines let it compress routings and combine operations. Two three-axis mills become one five-axis mill, and Swiss lathes are being replaced by mill-turns. The group was also told to ask "why" about every process. Bradley said aerospace carries a lot of inertia, where parts are made a certain way because they have been made that way for 30 years. In many cases, the team found no real value in steps that had been done for decades.
Eliminating Setups and Using Common Processes
To fix flow, Bradley's team looked across products for processes the parts had in common and grouped them together. He described the old way: an operator checks the queue, picks the highest-priority job, and possibly performs a setup that could take a shift or two. The operator then runs a batch of around ten, since Moog doesn't make anything in high volume, and the part moves on through more queues. Combining operations into common processes has let the team cut some processes from weeks to days, according to Bradley.
The other major goal is eliminating setups entirely. Automated cells use a common tool package. A part that fits the package is admitted into the cell "and kind of take[s] the fast lane," whatever it is called or looks like. A part that doesn't fit stays out, because the cell isn't meant to be changed over. Bradley noted the limits: some manual deburring can't be automated, because someone has to look six inches into a part to confirm there is no burr and remove it. His summary was that automation is a problem-solving tool, not "the solution to everything."
A Palletized Cell for Overnight Prototypes
Greer offered an example from a recent supplier visit. He first noted that Buffalo trains technicians, and pointed to other places doing similar work: the Midwest, including Wisconsin and the Chicago area, and Alabama, where he said four universities now teach it as curriculum. He described himself as a "conduit" in the machining industry. People call him looking for estimators, machines, or robots, and he tries to connect businesses.
The shop he described used a palletization system with tombstones for low-volume, high-mix work. Technicians programmed each part themselves, which also gave them hands-on practice. They set jobs up in the evening and had prototypes nearly done by morning. Greer said this mattered a great deal in his industry, because getting a prototype built quickly lets a company assemble it and show a customer what it can do. Bradley agreed.
What People Miss When Evaluating a Shop
Luecke asked Greer what people tend to overlook when assessing a supplier. Greer answered with his own training. At his previous employer, which he identified as Northrop Grumman, he became machine shop IPT lead. His team included a senior quality engineer who was AS9100 audit-certified and had owned a machine shop for more than 50 years, and another engineer with 48 years in quality. Greer said he had never been as embarrassed as he was after his first site visit, because he didn't yet know what he was looking for.
He had to learn to turn over measuring equipment to check calibration dates. He also had to learn manufacturing process flow: after a visit, he had to lay out and explain a supplier's process flow to his team, and if it didn't make sense, "it was horrible for me." He said he was "dragging my knuckles" for about six months. Then his colleagues started calling him "bro" in emails, and he knew he had earned his place. Today, he said, he can walk through a machine shop and tell its "honest capacity."
Upstate New York's Manufacturing Base
Luecke turned to the host region. Some attendees had told him they were glad the show came, since many people skip over Upstate New York. Bradley started with Rochester's Gleason Works, which he called the world hub for gear manufacturing. If you need a gear hobbing machine or anything related to gears, he said, it's here. He attended RIT's Kate Gleason College of Engineering, and noted that Gleason machines are found around the world, including in Moog's shops.
Moving toward Buffalo, Bradley confirmed that the city smells like Cheerios because of the downtown General Mills plant. He listed the Ford stamping plant, a GM engine plant, and Moog, which has about 4,000 people between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, along with many other aerospace companies. His point was that Buffalo has been an aerospace hub since before World War II and still is. People remember it as a steel town because of Bethlehem Steel, he said, but other manufacturers kept growing alongside it, and that growth "hasn't slowed down at all." The result, in his view, is a largely unrecognized hub of advanced precision manufacturing.
Luecke mentioned conversations about Kodak: its talent hadn't left Rochester but had spread into other organizations. Bradley agreed that Kodak seeded many Rochester businesses, making the city an optics hub, and that local companies also make metrology equipment Moog buys. Buffalo, he said, leans less toward optics and more toward machined components, metalwork, and assembly.
Jobs That Are Changing, Not Disappearing
Bradley said the region is seeing a manufacturing resurgence that probably doesn't get enough attention. He stressed that the jobs aren't going away; they are growing, but they are changing. In the past, a machinist might stand at one machine for a year or two before becoming proficient, and might not be fully signed off until they could run all 500 part numbers made on it. Moog is trying to turn that knowledge into a formula. The work it needs now includes supporting automation systems and maintaining five-axis and other complex machines.
He described the moment as an inflection point. In his opinion, the industry isn't yet where it needs to be, but companies are realizing they need training programs and need to tell people that these are high-paying, high-skill, exciting jobs.
Lessons from Other Regions
Asked which other region does something well, Greer named Oregon, which he said surprises people. In the Portland-area shops he visited, technicians are also programmers and planners and perform WIP inspection on the floor, which he called unusual. He said these shops pay well and hold high standards; as he described it, if a worker dozes off at a machine, there is zero tolerance.
He contrasted this with Boston and Los Angeles. There he might see the same technician in a different shop four months later, because workers in those larger cities move for pay bumps of 25 cents to a dollar.
Greer also shared his own read on the national market. He said that around the start of Q4 he saw roughly a 17 to 24 percent jump in manufacturing activity across the country all at once. In Phoenix, where he is based, he said the semiconductor industry was largely shut down for about the first three quarters of the year because of tariffs, while companies worked out how to maneuver around them. Once they did, he said, production picked up, and not only there but across the country. He said he feels this personally from his conversations with shops. Prototyping work, which he called unglamorous and not enough to keep the lights on, can lead to high-volume work that does.
Culture as a Competitive Advantage
Asked how their organizations contribute to the manufacturing resurgence, Brown focused on culture. Companies can train endlessly, he said, but without the right culture they will lose people "every single time." He suggested culture is the question most often left out of supplier evaluations. Ask a 40-year veteran what they think of the culture, and you will get either a reply that makes you want to leave or a warm one. He considered it even more important to ask the youngest person there, someone 20 to 22 years old. If they feel supported and can ask a veteran how they made a similar part and what went wrong last time without being told off, they are likely to stay in manufacturing.
He recalled a guest from an earlier podcast, a machinist with 30 years of experience. That machinist's son finished two years of school, joined his father's shop, and left the trade three weeks later because he was yelled at every time he asked for help. Brown said Fathom has done "incredibly well" at creating environments where people fit in, can ask questions, and aren't afraid to make mistakes. Young people in this industry will make many mistakes, he said, and if they are treated as lessons learned, those people will stay.
Bradley agreed and described Moog's culture work during its transition. Jobs done one way for 40 years are changing, and the company wants to manage that change compassionately and give people the resources they need so their experience stays positive. Moog also emphasizes that its parts are flight-critical and that someone's life may depend on a feature a machinist is making. Bradley said you can walk through the shop, ask anyone what they're working on, and they will tell you what it is, how it's used, and why it matters. He called that ownership and pride critical to engagement.
On the regional commitment, Bradley said most of his division's work is for the US military, including military aircraft. Moog intends to keep making that hardware in Western New York or at its other US sites, such as California. It has new programs on the horizon and has already drawn up plans for the next expansion of the facility when that work arrives. "This is our home," he said, describing the company's roots in the community.
A Shop Owner Who Bought His Employees' Homes
Greer said X-Bow recruited experienced people from across the solid rocket motor industry, generally with about ten years of experience or more, who were ready to "make the jump" to a startup. He described his colleagues as passionate, pointed to the many videos of static fires and launches on the company website, and said everything the company makes must be made in America for the Department of War. The company also makes FMS sales.
He then shared the lesson that stuck with him most. At a machine shop in San Jose, the owner introduced "Mark" as his least-tenured employee, with 24 years. When Greer asked how that was possible, the owner explained that he invested in his people. Instead of having employees take out car loans, personal loans, or mortgages from financial institutions, he bought their homes through the business, and employees received a discount. Later, a shop owner in Alabama told Greer he was struggling to retain workers. Greer told him the San Jose story. The owner noted that real estate is cheap in his area and said Greer had given him a great idea. Greer said he plans to go back about a year later to see whether the culture has changed.
Greer added that he has seen spotless shops and shops where metal shavings line the floor, yet the messy shops sometimes produce "mind-boggling" work. His most striking recent visit was in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. He said he had "never seen such happy technicians in a shop," with at least one technician-programmer per machine and polished floors, something he said he hadn't seen anywhere else in the country.
Balancing Speed, Throughput, and Craftsmanship
In a final quick round, Luecke asked how engineering teams balance speed, throughput, and craftsmanship when scaling up. Bradley's answer was "going slow to go fast." Moog is moving 1,500 parts from one factory to another, and the team spent two and a half years planning before making the first move. That planning covered the future state of each part, contingencies for machine downtime, contract reviews to avoid contractual problems, and tooling. With plans A, B, and C in place and everyone clear on the mission, execution goes much more smoothly, though he acknowledged there will still be hiccups. "If you go too fast, you will be worse off in the end."
Greer said the question was hard for him because his phone is effectively a 911 line, and he is usually expected to answer in five minutes or within 24 hours. X-Bow moves faster than most companies, he said, but is also "very, very risk-averse," because "with a rocket, you get one shot and that's it." You can't take it back or refire it, so diligence is essential. Sometimes he wants drawings faster than he can get them, but he accepts that. "Slow, smooth, and methodical" are key words for him.
Brown, noting he isn't an engineer, closed with "keep it simple" and time-box decisions. His admittedly controversial line: ask five engineers to solve one problem and "there'll be 10 answers and 20 hours of argument." Sometimes your gut is right, he said, and you should trust it and move forward, because manufacturing is about solving problems, and they need to be solved quickly.
If we're going to double in size over the next 10 years, we can't go make or find another 330 machinists. And a lot of what they do is kind of on the level of art.
We're about speed and scalability. We do move at a pace faster than most. We're very risk-averse in some ways because you only get one shot, right? With a rocket, you get one shot and that's it.
Today's episode is all about the art of precision manufacturing, recorded live from Fathom's Manufacturing Exchange in Rochester, New York. We have three guests in today's episode, including Matthew Bradley, program director at Moog, a global manufacturer of precision motion control components and systems. We also have James Greer, supplier development at X-Bow Systems, the leading non-traditional producer of solid rocket motors. And finally, we have Chris Brown, senior VP of sales at Fathom Digital Manufacturing, one of the largest on-demand digital manufacturing companies in North America.
A few of the topics we'll cover include why precision manufacturing is still an art that requires human intuition. We'll discuss where automation actually adds value and how leading manufacturers are balancing speed, scale, and craftsmanship. And finally, we'll discuss the manufacturing ecosystem in Upstate New York, the strength of the region, and what's working well in other regions, too. As always, if you want to learn more, check out the show notes page at manufacturinghappyhour.com.
And just so we have a bit of context before we dive into the interview, this episode was recorded live at Artisan Works, which is an awesome art-focused event space in Rochester, and a perfect setting for this conversation. This was the second stop on our Rust Belt Renaissance Tour, and this stop was a special collaboration with Fathom Digital Manufacturing.
As they were hosting their Manufacturing Exchange for this region that night, we brought together the live podcast, precision manufactured components displayed art gallery style, which was very cool. Plus, we had manufacturing leaders from across the region there to connect and mingle. All around awesome night and a big thank you to Fathom for making it all happen. Now, let's head back to Rochester, New York to meet up with James, Matthew, and Chris.
Gentlemen, how are we feeling? Feeling good?
Fantastic, thank you.
Check.
I'm on stage with you, of course I'm feeling good.
Oh, that's so nice of you, Chris. James, how are we feeling?
My feet are on the ground, so I'm okay.
All right.
In a high chair.
Excellent. Excellent. Well, hey, I'm excited to have you all up here as we talk about the art of precision manufacturing. There's a reason we're in a very arts-centric facility like tonight because I think it sets the right mood that, you know, there's still a lot of art, there's a ton of human element to manufacturing as much as we've learned how to automate over the years. So, that's what we're going to get into in this conversation. But before we do that, let's do a round of introductions. So, James, if you want to start us off, you know, you are a supplier development specialist at X-Bow. Am I getting that right, James?
Yeah, you could say that. I've developed it now into the lead sourcing rep for X-Bow. So, I started out with metallic parts, and now it's transitioned to propellants, chemicals, energetics, composites, additive manufacturing has come up as of October. I've just been trying to grapple the entire industry and see how I can help out with our company.
Yeah, and you have a breadth of experience in this space, and we're going to dive into that a little later. But if you were just to describe what X-Bow does, if you're having a drink with someone, let's paint a picture of what your organization does so we've got some context.
All right, we build rockets. The best way to say this is we vertically integrate. We're doing our systems internally. We started out as a startup company in 2016 and have worked into where we are today. But we are about speed and producibility and scale. But we are out there trying to tackle the solid rocket motor industry.
I love it. We're going to get more into rockets as we get into our conversation. But Matt, you're also doing some pretty cool things over at Moog. Moog, I said that right. I'm going to continue to get it right. So, you're program director there. How do you describe what you do at Moog as if you're having a drink with someone?
Okay. So, I guess what I do every day is, so we're in the business of, my group is in the business of building factories.
So we are building and populating a new manufacturing facility. So, a machine shop basically that is kind of taking our machining to the next level, right? So, we have an opportunity to replace a lot of equipment with advanced technologies, think differently about how we're manufacturing the parts. And so over the last couple years we built a brand new 150,000 sq ft machine shop. We're putting about 100 different machines in there, replacing our existing shop, putting automation systems and a whole bunch of advanced manufacturing machinery in there. So.
All right. So, building a brand new state-of-the-art shop. James, you're out there evaluating suppliers. Chris, how do you describe what you do at Fathom over a drink?
Yeah, so Fathom is seven different manufacturing sites that offer 25 different manufacturing services ranging from additive manufacturing to sheet metal. All of them highly certified with a lot of really skilled task and labor inside of it. And so we take on some of the most complex and challenging parts and make sure our customers are happy with them.
All right. And this next question, Matt, we'll start with you. Then we'll go to James and Chris on this. But I'm going to jump right into the theme of tonight's conversation. How would you characterize precision manufacturing or specialized manufacturing as an art? Where do you see the art in what you do?
So, I guess I'll talk a little bit about what we do and then kind of relate that. So, Moog is a technology company that focuses on motion control, right? So, critical applications of things that need to move, right? So, whether it's aircraft or space systems or even medical devices, right? So, we make parts for pumps and whatnot. So, critical mission, I guess mission-critical applications, right?
So, we get into parts that, you know, we're machining down into the millionths, right? And trying to hold tolerances into the millionths. Well, I guess you can argue, can you even measure that, right? We struggle with that ourselves sometimes. But for the last 75 years, we've been making parts that go into these critical applications, whether it's an aircraft or a boat or something like that or a submarine.
And where the art comes in is there's certain things that you just cannot automate, right? So, things that require a human to feel what's going on and really understand how the thing is working, right? So, for example, in the flight controls that we make, when you're putting a servo valve together, we have these parts that are kind of interference fit parts that are going together within thousandths of an inch, and you have a person there kind of turning a device to assemble these pieces, and if they feel it clicks, something's wrong, right? So, we're doing things where a human has to be able to feel whether or not, you know, they're getting it right.
So, you know, where we automate is where, jeez, we've kind of figured out the secret sauce. We can write that down. We can proceduralize it, right? But there's certain things so far, especially in the precision motion control world, that we just haven't been able to figure out. And frankly, we don't think we're going to be able to, right? There is always going to have to be a human in there to feel and understand what's going on.
So, the art being very tied to the human aspect. I appreciate you bringing up automation. We're definitely going to be getting to that here in a second. James, where do you see the art in manufacturing?
So, I'd like to start off with, I'm more of the man that's on the ground. Okay, I've been to, as of today, 231 machine shops in just over 2 and 1/2 years.
That's an insane amount. I just wanted to like blurt that out early on. That is a wild amount of places to see.
I'm kind of nervous about being in Rochester because there's a few shops here that have reached out to me in 2024 and I've not had an opportunity to get back up here. So, you brought me to Rochester. Now, I might have to come back out.
Out here in the audience tonight. Who knows?
Be in a back alleyway waiting for me to come out, too.
But when I hear that, I think of a few shops that I've been to, and I call them gold standard type shops that I go to, and I remember going into this facility and they had a huge screen on the wall like this mural here. And you'll see all the machines printing away and they're doing all their operations and all of a sudden, rings red. What I won't forget was I actually watched my watch and I waited exactly 60 seconds and it was like Monsters Inc. The light went off, like the door opens up, three engineers run out to the floor and I'm just sitting there watching as I'm in the waiting room just waiting. And within 5 minutes it was back up and running again. It was an error. And I asked about it.
And it's that kind of attention to detail that you see when you're out there. How much an idle machine can kill a shop. The precision of it is amazing. I've been everywhere from Oregon, Seattle to Miami to Augusta, Maine all the way down to LA and everything in between. And the precision, the art of what it is. I used to have a ton of pictures. My previous supplier, I had to give back my phone. I used to have some just fantastic looking machine parts that were just beautiful works of art. And it's kind of cool that we're here because this is full of nothing but art and it just makes you think of that. And it gives a different perspective.
Yeah, the thing that sticks out to me is the bikes in the ceiling. I mean they're oddities. We've got the yellow brick road leading in here. We got pretty much every animal on Noah's Ark somewhere in this facility as well. I don't want to get us on a tangent of all the stuff that has distracted me while we've been here. But Chris, maybe if you could wrap this round. I mean where do you see art in precision manufacturing?
Yeah, so where I really see it is in the novel designs, right? The first time you make something that's novel, it relies on a lot of institutional knowledge, and you and I have talked about institutional knowledge in the past and how hard that is to transfer, how hard it is to pass down. And that's really where that artist needs to come in and say, I've learned this lesson before. I've seen this problem before. Maybe not in its entirety, right? I've seen parts of this problem in three different places. I know how to solve this. I think I can. Those are all things that a simulation can't run. Your CAD to CAM programming isn't going to catch all of those intricacies, especially when you're talking about novel parts. And James, I loved how you kind of described the problem as well, because those are novel problems that happen at a machine, right? And it happens everywhere, and I don't care how much AI you throw at it. The human brain is what needs to solve that problem.
It's funny you say that because throughout the United States, that problem, it happens. And what usually happens is it's somebody middle-aged or lower, not to genderfy or do anything else, but they'll end up going to the senior machinist that's in the facility and it's a problem solver. And it's really cool. You start seeing how it's all identified and broke down, and the demographics across the United States of the age of the machining world right now across the United States is just, it's wide variance. You meet some really young geniuses and then you see some really old geniuses of these men, these women that are out there machining away and it's amazing.
Yeah. Now, well, it's refreshing to hear the spectrum of ages represented in this space right now because we don't always hear that aspect. I mean, just the podcast right before, we had the sisterhood of trades, right? You know, we're seeing more people get into manufacturing. Where I want to go with this next question, Chris, I'm actually going to start with you and we'll go down the line back to James this time, but we were talking about the art, we were talking about the human side. Where do you see automation bringing the most value in manufacturing operations these days? Feel free to talk specifically to your operation or other ones that you've observed as well.
Yeah, as you know, I've been in a lot of manufacturing companies at this point in my career. And where you see the most automation applied is the easiest place to apply it, right? What's high volume running? What doesn't require that artist to sit there and watch it, right? What can you repeat over and over and over again and you don't want to put labor in charge of it. This is also where it tends to bite people the most though, right? I've worked at manufacturers in the past that automated everything, even setup number one. And I cannot begin to describe the amount of scrap that was made in facilities like that in the past.
And so, a lot of the questions really need to boil down to not just the ROI, right? Because the ROI is always going to prove it out if you are making a quantity X or greater, but also what can go wrong and what other types of sensors do we need? What human sensors do we need on this? We have ears, we have minds, we have noses that smell when the lubricants are burning and we can go and adjust things. There's not a sensor that's going to tell you that your lubricant is off a little bit like somebody who's been doing it 15, 20, 30 years.
Yeah, I appreciate you bringing the quote human aspect into it the way you described those sensors there. I think that's very appropriate for this discussion. Matt, we were just talking about this the other day. I think you have some really eloquent ways of describing where automation makes sense in this case.
Yeah, so I guess I'll talk a little bit about kind of our philosophy as to, you know, how we're implementing it. So we're trying to solve a couple problems with automation. We're trying to do it as smartly as possible and we're not doing it just for the sake of doing it, right? It's not because we want to, you know, have the most interesting, sexiest automation system. It's really to solve problems. So, the first problem we're trying to solve is one of staffing, right? So, we currently, in the division I work in, we have about 330 machinists in our machine shop. Over the next 10 years, we're expecting to double in size, right? So, in the Buffalo area, we have apprenticeship programs, we have partnerships with local colleges and training centers, and they can't keep up, right? So, if we're going to double in size over the next 10 years, we can't go make or find another 330 machinists, right? And a lot of what they do is kind of on the level of art, right? We have a critical, precious resource that we just can't make more of, right?
So, one of the main reasons for automation is let's take some of the kind of lower-skilled work that does not require an artist, if you will, and methodize that and make it such that a system can handle it, right? Not to minimize the work, but just to say, "Hey, I need to utilize this resource that is very hard to find as smartly as possible, right?" So that's one. Two, we've struggled with
flow in our shop, right? We've been around for 75 years, and we still have a job shop, right? For manufacturing. We've been making parts for platforms for 40 years, and we still have a batching queue-style job shop, right? It looks like a plate of spaghetti.
So, and the third thing was we had a lot of aging equipment that needed to be recapitalized. And so, you've got all of these kind of factors, and it says, "Well, let's think about it differently, right? How do we do this smarter?" So, that's where some of the automation comes in, right? We're replacing the equipment with more capable equipment, right? So, two three-axis mills get replaced by a five-axis mill. Swiss lathes are getting replaced by mill turns, and so now I'm able to kind of compress the routing of the part and combine operations. We're also asking ourselves, "Why are we doing some of these things, right?" Especially in aerospace, there's a lot of inertia to make a change to something, right? And so, people just think "This is how we make it. This is how we made it for 30 years. Therefore, that's how we should make it going forward." Well, our group was tasked with asking why for every one of those scenarios, "Why are we doing this?" And in a lot of cases, we found out that maybe there isn't value in doing that, right?
In order to help with the flow was kind of the third part, we've kind of looked at the products and said, "Okay, what processes do they go through that are consistent between the parts, and let's mash those together, right?" And so, today in batch and queue world, you've got a machine, I need to look at the queue, pick out the next job that's the highest priority, maybe do a setup on the machine, right? That could be a shift or two. Then I've got to run my batch of 10, cuz we don't make high volume anything, right? Then I got to work to the next one, and then the part works its way through queues, right? So, by taking our system, or all of those operations and mashing them together into common processes, we're able to take processes that take weeks and down to days, right?
The other big thing that we tried to do is eliminate setups altogether, right? So, if the part is a common tool package, it goes into the cell. If it doesn't fit the tool package, it doesn't fit the cell, cuz I don't want to have to do a changeover, right? So, it doesn't matter what it's called, what it looks like, as long as it fits that process, it can be admitted into the cell and kind of take the fast lane.
So, to us, it's kind of a problem-solving tool, but it is not the solution to everything, right? There are still manual deburr operations that you just can't automate, right? Someone has to look 6 in into the part, make sure that there's not a burr there, and deburr it. So, trying to just kind of do it as solve real problems and not just do it for the sake of doing it.
I appreciate the organization and detail to that answer, particularly doing it in the context of what you're doing at Moog. James, to wrap this round of questions up, where are you seeing automation impact, or how are you looking at automation when you're evaluating a supplier?
Yeah, so I'll give an answer that's more practical application from being out in the United States across the nation. I want to key off of Buffalo is a place where they're actually training and teaching technicians, all right? So, that just became a hot spot in my conversation now because there's a few places in the United States like the Midwest, Wisconsin, Chicago area. And then there's also in Alabama. It's another place where four of the universities in Alabama actually teach that as curriculum now. So, I'm actually involved. I try to be a conduit to the machining industry. When I'm out there, people need labor or they need equipment. I try to do that and facilitate that between businesses. People call me all the time and ask me for just estimators, machines, robots. I try to plug in and be a conduit for that.
But to go back to the automation, just the other day we were at a facility where they had a palletization machine for automation, right? And what they were doing is they were using the palletization tool with each one of their tombstones to put on their part. And what they would do is low volume, high mix. And they would have their technicians do the programming for each one of those parts. And they would get practical exercise. And they would go ahead and set it up the night before and then come back and the prototype would be done almost in the morning. It was really helping out in our industry because getting a prototype out as fast as we can get it so that we could assemble it and get it in front of a customer that we could show what our capabilities are was so key in our industry. I'm sure it's the same with both of us.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
James, I'm going to start this next one with you because you're like the Johnny Cash character on stage tonight. You've been everywhere, man. What do most people miss? You know, we've been talking about automation, we've been talking about the art. You've evaluated many, many suppliers, many shops in the manufacturing space. What's something most people miss like when they're looking at it that is a key part to an excellent operation?
I would say I got my teeth cut when I was at my last employer. I took over as the machine shop IPT lead for, I'll just say, Northrop Grumman. And I had a senior engineer who was the quality engineer, AS9100 audit certified, owned his own machine shop for 50-plus years. I had another one with 48 years in the industry, engineer, quality. The engineer on my team, who I'm still good friends with these days, all these gentlemen.
I went out for my first site visit. I remember coming back and I've never been like embarrassed so bad for my first visit. There were certain things that didn't register what I was looking for. I was brand new.
One of the things that I had to do was I had to go out and turn over measuring equipment for calibration dates. That was one. I had to look at, learn manufacturing process flow. I had to lay out and come back and describe to them what the layout of their manufacturing process flow was. And if it didn't make sense, if I'm trying to explain it to them, then it was horrible for me.
I was pretty, I was dragging my knuckles for the first 6 months. And then after about 6 months all of a sudden an email comes through and they're calling me bro. And I knew, okay, I finally have like cut my teeth. I've made it this far where I know where to walk inside of a machine shop. I could pretty much tell you, not fabrication, I could tell you what their capacity is just by walking through a machine shop. An honest capacity.
Well, we're going to continue to touch on your experience across the country, but I do want to bring it back to New York for a little bit as well because we've really been talking about the art of precision manufacturing up to this point, but you know, Matt, I'd love to maybe tap you a bit to hear a bit about Upstate New York manufacturing. Like what industries do people not realize are here? I've had a couple conversations with folks tonight. They're like, "I'm glad Manufacturing Happy Hour is here. A lot of people kind of skip through Upstate New York." But this is a key part of the Rust Belt and has been. So, I'm going to stop talking. I mean, what industries are you seeing out here? And then I've got a follow-up question to that for you.
Sure. So, I guess starting in Rochester, right? So, one of the companies that we work closely with is Gleason Works, right? So, if you want to talk about gear manufacturing and like the hub of the world for gear manufacturing, that's here in Rochester, right? If you need a gear hob machine or something related to gears, that is here, right? So, a lot of people probably don't know that, right? I went to the Kate Gleason College of Engineering at RIT, right? Here in Rochester. So, locally people know that, but I think, you know, all around the world you're finding Gleason machines, right? Including in our shops as well.
When you kind of go towards the Buffalo area, and I'm sorry, I'm sure I missed something in Rochester.
Well, we can get back to Rochester more, but let's go down I-90 to Buffalo.
Go over there. So, first of all, it is true that Buffalo does smell like Cheerios. So, downtown at General Mills. There's the Ford Stamping Plant. We've got GM engine plant. And then, you know, where I work, Moog, we've got about 4,000 people in the Buffalo area between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. And then there's a whole bunch of other kind of aerospace companies in the area. So, I guess what people probably don't know is going back many, many years, even, you know, before World War II, Buffalo has been a big hub for aerospace. And we still are, right? So, and you know, people talk about Bethlehem Steel, you know, Buffalo's a steel company, like steel town. Well, in the meantime, as that was happening, all of these other manufacturing businesses were growing and continuing to grow, and that hasn't slowed down at all. And so, we do have a bit of a hub of kind of advanced precision manufacturing in the Buffalo area that I think a lot of people don't know about.
Yeah. You know,
I think of aerospace when I think up here. The other thing, but bringing it back to Rochester a little bit, my next question for you, and Chris, I promise we're going to get to you in a bit, but I got a couple questions for Matt and James here first. But one thing I do want to understand, or at least one of the conversations I had tonight was like companies like Kodak, right? Were behemoths here a long time ago. And that talent hasn't necessarily just like left because Kodak's not what they were before. But it's been spread out across a number of other organizations across like the Rochester area. But my question, I guess, for you is how would you describe the manufacturing community here? Like I feel like there's like a bit of an uptick in what's going on in Upstate New York right now from a manufacturing standpoint. What's the innovation community like? What's the general industrial scene like here? The people that make it up.
Yeah, it's a good question. I think it's a little bit different in the different parts of New York, right? So, you mentioned, you know, Kodak, right? So, that spurred in the Rochester area a whole bunch of different businesses, right? So, optics is a big kind of hub here in Rochester. There's a bunch of optics companies, right? So, that knowledge never left. It just kind of spawned a bunch of different applications, right? There's companies that make metrology equipment in the area, right? That we end up purchasing as well. And in the Buffalo area, I guess it's a different kind of brand of manufacturing, right? Less optics, more into the kind of machined components. More kind of metal creation, assembly type of things. But I do agree. I think we probably don't talk about it enough. It probably doesn't get enough attention in the areas, but there is definitely a resurgence of it. You know, and we talked about kind of the trades and trying to kind of build that skill set again. That's a huge thing in both areas, right? Those jobs aren't going away. In fact, they're growing, but they're changing, right?
So, you know, we're finding that the skill set change is much more training oriented, right? So, in our business, we're moving from a lot of kind of manual processes that required, you know, somebody to stand in front of a specific machine and learn this machine for a year, 2 years before they're really proficient, right? And oh, by the way, you've got to learn how to do 500 different part numbers on this machine, and so you're really not signed off on it until you've got all of that done, right? So, we're trying to take that and put that into a formula, and then the work is changing, and so the focus is now on, well, now we need folks that can support automation systems. We need machine maintenance folks that understand five-axis machining, more complex machining. And so, it's not that the jobs are different or the jobs are less, but they're just changing, right? And so, I think there's a lot of focus on how do we build the right type of workforce in these areas to continue to allow these businesses to grow, right? We're in a bit of an inflection point, in my opinion, where, you know, we're finding that we're not quite where we need to be, but everybody's starting to catch up and realize, "Oh jeez, we need training programs, we need," these are high-paying, high-skilled jobs, and how do we get the word out there that this is some really exciting stuff, right?
Yeah, I like that you highlight the strengths of like the different areas within Upstate New York in general. As an outsider, a lot of times I kind of lump it all into like one category, but you spoke very specifically about, hey, there's a lot of optics that's here in Rochester, down the road there's a lot more of that, let's call it heavy industry a little bit. James, my question for you from almost a completely different standpoint, we're just highlighting the strengths of Rochester and Upstate New York. James, you've been everywhere. What's the strength of another region that you've seen? I mean, you highlighted a few earlier when you were talking about Alabama, but what's another area that stands out that's doing something right that, you know, folks listening to this across the country could pull away as a best practice?
So, I like to just go across United States, and one of the places that really surprised me for skilled labor was the state of Oregon. And it really catches people off guard when you say that. Going out there, I visited quite a few shops up in the Portland area, and Oregon may have, whatever's going on demographically or whatever there in their economy, but you go there and their technicians are programmers, planners, and they also perform WIP inspection on the floor. Pretty unique. There are a few other places, but Oregon in general had that going on, and I know there's a lot going on in that state, but if a person dozes off on a machine, there's a bottle sitting next to them. They have zero tolerance. So, and they pay them very well. Their skilled labor there.
One of the things that I've also picked up on is like Boston and LA. You go out to those two areas and you'll see the technician maybe 4 months later in another shop, and they'll move around in these bigger cities for the 25 cent, $1 pay jump from one shop to another.
We talked about the education system across the United States and how that's improving. It's really amazing to see how the system, the entire United States, is growing in the manufacturing industry.
One of the things that I will say from my experience, as of about Q1 or day one of Q4, across the United States, about 17 to 24% jump in manufacturing. All across the United States all at once. You had the semiconductor industry out west where I'm at in Phoenix. That whole region over there was shut down for about three quarters of the year, right? They shut down semiconductor industry for the first three quarters of the year because of the tariffs. And people were trying to figure out how do we maneuver around these tariffs. And once they started figuring out, okay, this is how I would maneuver, then all of a sudden there was an influx of flow, production started happening, and it just didn't happen there. It was all the way across the United States. It just ramped up. And so I feel that personally because I talked to a lot of the industry, a lot of the shops out there, and I'm always looking for somebody to help me with certain things like prototyping, for instance. It's not the
sexiest jobs out there. It doesn't keep the lights on. But like I said, why we need it. But that leads to that, hey, I've got high volume now. It's going to keep your lights on. You're going to take a vacation here soon. So I always talk to the industry and try to figure out what's going on out there.
Yeah, I appreciate you taking us across the country with that answer. Literally from coast to coast. Chris, you've been so patient with us. I'm going to start... We got two more rounds of questions, and then we're wrapping. So, I'm going to ask you all this question, but Chris, if you can lead off. I'm very curious to hear from all of you how your organizations, how you feel your organizations are contributing to the resurgence of US manufacturing or the resurgence of manufacturing in your specific area. So, Chris, let's lead off with you.
Yeah, I think there's a couple of things that need to be spoken about there, right? There's not only the training of the labor that we've been talking about up here and that we were talking about in the back of the room, but also the culture that needs to be there as well. We can sit here and we can train and train and train all day long, but if you don't have the right culture, you're going to be losing those people immediately every single time.
And it was interesting that when you asked James the question earlier about, you know, what do you look for in a shop? I think one of the things that gets really overlooked is asking about the culture. If you can go into a shop and ask somebody who's been there for 40-plus years, "What do you think of the culture here?" You're either going to get some salt of the earth grimy reply that makes you want to run out of the place, or you're going to get a really warm welcome reply.
But on the flip side of that, even maybe more importantly, is finding the 20, 21, 22-year-old youngest member of that team and asking them what do they think about the culture as well. Because if they feel supported, if they feel like they can approach that 40-year vet and ask them, "Hey, have you ever made a part like this in the past? What did you do wrong when you last made it?" And they don't just immediately get told off, they're going to want to stay in manufacturing.
I go back to a previous podcast that I was on a year or so ago, and one of the most interesting things was we had a 30-year machinist on and his son entered the trade and got out of it 3 weeks later. He went through 2 years of school, came to work at his dad's shop, 3 weeks later he was out the door. And I asked him, you know, "Why do you think that is?" Because he got yelled at every time he asked for help, right? He just didn't want to deal with it anymore.
If we can focus on that, I think it's really important and I think that's one of the things that Fathom has done incredibly well is create environments where people feel like they fit in. They can ask those questions. They don't have to be afraid of screwing up, right? You're going to screw up a lot when you're young in this industry. It's bound to happen. And as long as you feel supported, you feel like it was a lesson learned, you're going to stay happy, you're going to stay there. So, I think that's one thing that gets overlooked that we really need to focus on.
That's a great answer. Appreciate you talking about the culture within your organization at Fathom. Matt, I do want to ask you about how you feel you're contributing to the resurgence of US manufacturing, but also bringing it home, the resurgence of manufacturing here in Upstate New York as well.
Yeah, so I guess I'll add to what Chris said, too. So, you know, one of our big things that we focus on as well is the culture, right? So, we're going through a change right now, right? And so, how do you deal with folks whose job is changing, right? It's a necessary thing, right? The way that it has been done for the last 40 years is changing. So, how do we do that compassionately, provide folks with the resources they need, because they've had a good experience so far? We want to make sure that continues on and that, you know, the experience they have is a positive one as they transition from, you know, the way that we've been doing it for so long and into the new way we do it.
One of the things we also focus on just from a culture standpoint is understanding what it is that they're doing, right? So, we make flight critical components in our factory, right? So, understanding that the feature that you're making, the part that you're making, somebody's life is dependent on that, right? So, that being correct. So, how do we make sure that folks understand the criticality of what they're working on, then they have that ownership of it, too, and they're the pride, right? You can walk through our machine shop and ask somebody what they're working on. They'll tell you exactly what it is and how it's used and why it's important that they're doing what they're doing, right? And so, to kind of keep that engagement there is critical.
In terms of what we're doing, you know, kind of within Western New York and in the US, you know, most of what we do where I work is work for the US military, right? So, it's military aircraft. Our intent is to continue to manufacture that hardware here in Western New York or in our sites within the country. We're intending to continue to grow within Western New York and so we have some new programs that are on the horizon and we already have kind of plans drawn up for what the next expansion of our facility will be when that work comes, right? So, there's definitely a dedication to continuing to grow in the area. This is our home, right? This is where we have a foothold. We have connection with the community and we want to continue to do that. And so, there's definitely a focus on, you know, if it is a US content program, the intent is to continue to make it here and continue to grow our sites that we have, whether they're here or California or other places across the US.
Yeah, another awesome specific example. Final person to answer this question is the rocket builder here. James, how do you see yourself contributing to US manufacturing and the resurgence?
So, X-Bow went throughout the industry, in the solid rocket motor industry, and cherry-picked their employees. They cherry-picked them with a minimum standard of probably about 10 years or more that were ready to make the jump, the leap of faith to go to a startup company. I will say that everybody I work with has passion. We absolutely love what we do. Go to our website. There are endless amounts of videos of us static firing or launching rockets or something to do with rockets on every webpage you're on, every one of ours.
I will say, obviously, everything that we do has to be made in America for the Department of War. And we also do FMS sales as well.
But I want to switch gears now to what I've witnessed across the United States. Some lessons that I've had to teach or give advice to machine shop owners across the United States.
An example that comes to mind about the culture. I remember being out in, of all places, San Jose. I was out there visiting a machine shop and I was being led around and the gentleman goes, "This is my least tenured employee with 24 years, Mark." And I'm like, 24 years is your least tenured? And so we came back and we sat down and we started talking about it. I said, "So how do you have your least tenured employee at 24 years?"
And so what that owner did is he invested in his people. What he did is, "I don't want you to go out and get a loan for your car. I don't need you to go out and get a personal loan and give your money away to some financial institution. I don't want you to go get a mortgage. I'll buy your house." So he bought all of his employees their homes through their work. They obviously had a discount. He invested in his people.
And that story stuck with me. So when I'm traveling the United States, for instance, I was out in Alabama, the gentleman I was talking to out in Alabama said, "Hey, I'm having a problem keeping my people here." And so I remembered that story and I gave him the same story and he was like, "Real estate's pretty cheap here." Yeah. And he goes, "You just gave me a great idea." So I'm excited to get back out there a year later and I want to go see how things are going, how his culture has maybe changed.
And that's the kind of thing I see throughout the United States. I've been to some places where you walk in there and it is a yellow, and then I've been to places where you can't even walk on the floor. You know, there's metal shavings up and it's like, like you said, the yellow brick road. It was like that along the side of the road. But then what comes out of there is just mind-boggling. How does this shop produce that? So there's skilled labor everywhere and then you've been to these places where I've seen such a mix of people and it's working. It's flowing.
I will say I just came up from Charlotte. In Charlotte, North Carolina, in the North Carolina area, I've never seen such happy technicians in a shop in my life.
It's a nice spot to live.
There was at least one technician programmer per machine on the floor. It was like the Minions in there, and polished floors. It was just crazy. I've never seen anything like that across the entire United States.
Well, you're really speaking the language of the Manufacturing Happy Hour world because we're always trying to learn what's working in different spots, and your example of going from San Jose, giving the tip to someone in Alabama, I mean, perfect way to describe it. Last question is kind of like a quick rapid fire round and it's probably stuff we've already talked about, but I do want to ask each of you, how do you see engineering teams balancing speed, throughput, and craftsmanship, tying it back to our theme of the art of precision manufacturing? How do you see them balancing speed, throughput, and craftsmanship when scaling production? Matt, I feel like you're the right person to start this because I feel like you've literally just been doing this as a core part of your job lately.
Yeah, I think it comes down to kind of going slow to go fast. So, you know, we're transitioning 1,500 parts, right? From one factory to another factory and it all comes down to having a plan, right? What is the future state of this part going to look like? We have to do all of our due diligence to make sure that we're not going to do something that's going to impact the customer, right? And so there's contingency plans on what if the machine's not, you know, not available or it goes down. We have to do contract reviews to make sure that we're not, you know, impacting something contractual with all these moves that we're making. Do we have all the right tooling? So the process itself is lengthy to even kind of start, right? We spent 2 and 1/2 years planning before we made the first move, right?
And so it really comes down to getting the plan, getting the right people involved, everybody understanding what the mission is, right before you really go off and execute it. And then once you do, everything's a lot smoother. Yes, you're going to have hiccups, you know, throughout the process, but at least throughout that planning process we identified kind of plan A, plan B, plan C. We know what to do in case this kind of contingency occurs. And so yeah, I'd say it's all about the planning process. If you go too fast, you will be worse off in the end.
James, what would you add? I see you're smiling here.
Yeah, because it's a tough question for me because my phone is like 911
pretty much.
Yeah.
"James, we need this," and usually I have an answer in 5 minutes or less than 24 hours. I see the contingency. I know it from being a program manager, but from where I'm at, we're about speed and scalability and producibility. What I will say is we do move at a pace faster than most. What we also do is we're very risk-averse in some ways. I would say very, very risk-averse. Because you only get one shot, right? With a rocket, you get one shot and that's it. You can't take it back, you can't refire it. You know, it's one shot. So, you get one chance. So, you have to be very diligent in everything you do. And I'm sure I would be reproducing this out loud again, but you just can't get the drawing fast enough sometimes, but I'm okay with that. Slow, smooth, and methodical are key words for me for life. So, yeah. That's about as much as I can get out of that.
I think it's a great summary. Chris, take us home on this. How are we balancing precision and craftsmanship while we're scaling?
Yeah, so as not an engineer, I think I'm still allowed to say this because I've been doing this for a long time, but it's keep it simple. Right? Time box things. The controversial part of this is if you ask five engineers to solve one problem, there'll be 10 answers and 20 hours of argument. So, time box that time, understand that sometimes your gut's right, trust it, and move forward. Because if we're solving problems, we have to be solving them fast because there's a lot of, you know, it's manufacturing. That's all we're doing is solving problems.
Killer tips. All three of you, thank you so much for the insights, the experiences you brought to the stage today. I do have a compliment I have to give before we wrap this up. The sock game on stage tonight was really strong, especially for an artsy type spot. I would say mostly on the stage left side of the stage. Well, yeah, I'm kind of slacking here, but for context, I'm wearing a suit tonight. I don't normally do this for my interviews, but James, you were like, "I got a custom suit for this tonight." I'm like, well, I have to show up looking presentable tonight. So, kudos on the fashion sense tonight. Hey, let's give it up for everyone on stage. James, Matt, Chris.
Really appreciate all your insights, all your stories. Hey, another round of applause for the Sisterhood of Trades for kicking off our podcasts. And another round of applause for Fathom for making this whole night possible, bringing together this community. And we'll sign off Manufacturing Happy Hour style. If you have a glass, raise it up. Stay innovative, stay thirsty, enjoy the rest of the evening. Cheers, everyone.
Hey folks, I know I gave a lot of thank yous there at the end. Thank you to everyone for listening here as well. If you caught it, I also gave a shout-out to the Sisterhood of Trades for opening the show. Don't miss that episode, we have that coming out next. In the meantime, make sure to connect with James, Matthew, and Chris over at the show notes page at manufacturinghappyhour.com. Make sure you're subscribed to Manufacturing Happy Hour wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll see you again very soon.
Article published