Leaning Out with Dr. Chris
Leaning Out with Dr. Chris
A Great One-Piece-Flow Success Story with John McCracken
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This is a great success story! One-Piece-Flow works! Even when it is not exactly one piece.
Welcome to the Leaning Out with Dr. Chris Podcast, where lean enterprise implementation meets real conversation. We talk with friends and colleagues, share a few laps, break down our wins, own our failures, and figure it out together. Thank you for listening. And no, I don't have an accent. That's your audio device. All right. So here we are with John McCracken. Um, so I I don't know who who are you officially employed with? Can you say?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. I'm I'm uh Tactical Kinetics, which is in Knoxville, Tennessee. And that's our barrel manufacturing business that um that you're well aware of. And yeah, we're uh but but certainly enjoy uh seeing and understanding and other I envy I envy you Chris and your that you get to go out and see all the all the all the other people and how they do it. I I get I get stuck in the in the plant.
SPEAKER_00It's pretty cool. I get to see a lot of different stuff. So we met 2017 or 18, something like that.
SPEAKER_01I think it was later than that. It would have been I think it would have been 21. That's when I first I met you through Rick Dowk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um um Rick says hello. The uh you told you through this? Yeah, yeah. I told him we were doing this, yeah. And and he's uh but but met you through that, and you and your dad were doing a class, and that might have been one of your last classes with your dad.
SPEAKER_00It might have been, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Up in the up, it was up in Indiana.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. That's cool. And yeah, so uh all right, so here we go. I I think I might know the answer to this, so you gotta start off. Fake car or favorite band?
SPEAKER_01Favorite car, favorite band. Oh my goodness. Mine's gonna be cars. I'm uh so I just finished a I finished a full restoration of an 83 four-door Cherokee. Really? Yeah, yeah. So I know I know this is a podcast, but I'll send you a picture of it. It's um full, full all the way down to the frame, all the way back up. That's kind of my passion. This is my third, fourth, fifth car all the way down, all the way back up. What's been your favorite one you've done? I think it's this one. Um, I also did a Defender 90. I've still got a 53 CJ3 that I ride around in with uh all the way down. But this one's it is primo, it's uh and it's all 2020 plus. What made you choose a Cherokee? Oh, I love it. They're just gorgeous cars, gorgeous cars. And but it's wagoneer, it's basically a four-door wagoneer, but in a Cherokee trim. Uh so that was uh fairly common back in the day. So AMC, but it's just a gorgeous vehicle. I'll text it to you while we're talking.
SPEAKER_00Well, so my um my favorite um story that I tell people is you and your green totes. Yes, or green tubs. I don't know what we call them. They weren't totes, that's not the right way to describe them. Tubs, maybe?
SPEAKER_01Uh well, we call them totes, and and so yeah, green totes, green uh green bins, green bins.
SPEAKER_00There we go. And they were what was the size of them?
SPEAKER_01I mean, you had they're about 24 by 24, 24 by 24, because you and about 20 inches deep.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so 24 by 24, 20 inches deep. How many of them you think you had when I first walked in there?
SPEAKER_01Easily 50 or 60, and they were all full, and and full and batch batch from one to the other, metal touching metal, and yeah, it's uh so we we that was your first thing.
SPEAKER_00So, what was what what now for me? Whenever I see that, right, I know how your facility runs when you you got big batches and you got containers out there. I don't even have to look at anything to really, I mean, that's may not always be true, but most of the time it's true. I can look at that and say, Okay, I've got a pretty good idea. Yeah, you were you you were one of the really good guys to work with because you didn't just say yes, you're like, okay, I think I understand, but I don't know that I really like it. Is that a fair assessment?
SPEAKER_01It it's fair, it's fair. And though I you you you've said, as has uh you know our mentors, Rick and your dad, but once you see it, you can't unsee it. And but it took me just a little while. I'm like, okay, I uh is it really gonna work here?
SPEAKER_00It really did, and it really did. Um, but it was fun to work with you because you were never anti, you just wanted to really understand it. Yes, and then once you did so so tell us about how that whole works now.
SPEAKER_01Well, but so when you first met us and we were transitioning, we were in a 10,000, 11,000 square foot space that we had grown very organically, and so we had these these work areas, I wouldn't even call them work cells, but work areas that had kind of grown organically around this small plant. And so we were batching from one step to the next, and usually in 500-piece lots. So when we moved, and we had we were blessed to grow, regardless of the of the business model. So we grew into uh 35,000 square feet. So all of a sudden we have all this room to organize the plant logically, excuse me, logically. And you were part of that, is you know, we're going, and if you remember the original spaghetti diagrams that we did, we had a piece of material in this little 11,000 square foot space going 700 feet. Every piece of material moved 700 feet in a little 10,000 square foot. And after we were done reorganizing, everything moved linearly, and it moved 140 feet, if you recall. And okay, so we and even even then it was still moving batches. Like you say, I wasn't quite ready. I wasn't quite ready to to abandon.
SPEAKER_00So but the batches were big batches, right?
SPEAKER_01Big batch, 500-piece batches, 500 piece, 500 piece at the time. So then we changed that such that each step of the process went and we we we arrived, if you recall, not at quite single piece flow, but we put uh carts together which had 24 pieces on it. And the 24 pieces we we identified where we're not where our pacemaker process, and and and we were fortunate or blessed that our pacemaker process was really the first operation. It was in our case the deep hole drilling, euphemistically called gun drilling. We obviously we make gun barrels, but gun gun drilling is is common you know in oil and gas. And any place that you're making a hole um many times the diameter of the hole, depth many times the diameter of the hole. Then that's euphemistically called gun drilling. But we're literally drilling gun barrels, thus. So our drill was our pacemaker, and it was our throttle.
SPEAKER_00And it was because as soon as you drilled it, it was going to be that part number, right? It was gonna be a part number.
SPEAKER_01And it also we were I think we were blessed in that regard, that not only was it the pacemaker, but it also allowed us to throttle the line. For everyone we could drill, the the downstream processes would run at roughly that rate. They weren't substantially faster than that rate, but they allowed us that that we could move through that. So we changed this to one hour cart, so not quite single-piece flow, but each of our gun drills has four spindles, so it has to be divisible by four. And then we would and it works out that a our gun drills, regardless of caliber and day in, day out, regardless of length, would drill approximately 24 per hour. And 24 was a handy uh unit packet size. It was handy to move from one operation to the next, and it also allowed us, you know, to to prep, but then it became a visual cue, if you remember, yeah. That we would have minimum of minimum of one, maximum of four. And that was a paradigm shift. That that at each operation, if they accumulated four carts, that meant four hours of work, four hours of whip, the upstream were supposed to come to a stop. And it and you recall it works, so it works fantastically. But we that was a paradigm shift. If if uh if you remember one of our our gun drilling people, he could he couldn't he couldn't get it. He he thought, man, they're not gonna pay me if I don't drill. Yeah. And you remember how he kept um he put a couple carts behind the machine if he if if they stopped in front of him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was a it was a big, it was it's a really cool story. Now, when you say you went to 24 and it was easy to move, that's true, but getting to 24, that cart took a lot of thought, right?
SPEAKER_01It took a lot of thought.
SPEAKER_00Many iterations of that.
SPEAKER_01Uh it was it was two or three. And I remember that we were, you know, we debated, and again, you were part of the debate, is um, well, we got to, you know, what's the optimum size, what is, but we also, those are kind of heavy parts. 24 pieces can weigh up to up to maybe 120 pounds, and probably in some cases 24 in their smallest, shortest barrels might weigh as little as as only 30 or 40 pounds. So we we're working on, you know, having something that was ergonomic that the guys didn't have to lean over as they did in the green bins, but small enough to to move from uh um operation to operation, but safe so it wouldn't turn over. I was really concerned about turning over.
SPEAKER_00I I think in in total transparency, I was wanting less than 24, wasn't I?
SPEAKER_01I think you did because you you were constantly watching how how close can we get to true single piece? How close can we get to single piece?
SPEAKER_00And and once what but but I mean when you choose a batch size, you choose the batch size that's the most efficient to run and you treat the batch like one piece. Indeed. And we still do, we still do once you you guys do it right because once you schedule your pacemaker, it flows all the way, it does, and it becomes a pull system.
SPEAKER_01We're pulling pulling it now, then then pushing it through the system.
SPEAKER_00So you went from moving big 500-piece batches to 24. Yes. So what did you do with all the green bit? You kept one just to give me a hard time, right? Well, I we still we still use them when we ship out for outsource um okay.
SPEAKER_01Because you guys can't do all the finishing, right? Uh in indeed. Um, and and frankly, you haven't been to the plan in a while. We've just introduced one of our primary outsources, which used to be right in the middle of the of the value stream. And and we currently have three different value streams, and really those are our lines, Chris. But we had an outsource right in the middle of two value streams, which was a vacuum oven operation. Yeah. And so we would send them out in the green bins because it was dense, and at that stage, I didn't have to worry about damage to the exterior.
SPEAKER_00And because you love the green bins.
SPEAKER_01And I just love those green bins. I just love them. But we we just we have just added that oven in internally, yeah, which reduces uh the length of our value stream by by in some cases two weeks.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know why I haven't been there in a while is because you haven't asked me. You were once you guys get all fixed and everybody's running good. Nobody calls me. See how nobody calls see how I'm doing, nothing.
SPEAKER_01Well, last time I saw you had a big beard, and uh, I didn't even recognize you when you were when you came on.
SPEAKER_00I look like my younger brother or something. You do no, you look good, you look good. And so then we moved um um the changeover, right? Your guys' changeover dropped dramatically, but I think that was a few things, right? I think SMED was one, and was it also making sure you change over in the right sequence?
SPEAKER_01We we've got SMED was a big one, uh, maybe the bigger, because I think where we are coming back to is the next next step on our journey is to really get into changeover wheel and and then operator um the word I'm looking for. Uh the uh training, cross training? Well, no, the operator balance.
SPEAKER_00Um, oh, oh, oh, operator balance chart.
SPEAKER_01Yes, operator balance. So also recall we we were when you first met us in 21 and 22, we were blessed to have high volume, low mix. And the the market starting in 22 and certainly all the way through 23 made a fairly radical change. One, it it it came off, we'll we'll call it the COVID high. It came off of the COVID high. Yeah. And and I'm answering, I'm gonna get to the answering the question if we're this journey of Value Stream and then SMED and some others. And we got where where we laid the plan out and it was well suited for high volume, and we began to discover it it it could handle some level of mix, but we had some trouble when it became such a high it we really transitioned to a high mix, low volume scenario, uh it particularly in this market.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know what made that possible is because you're not running in batches of 500. Indeed, indeed.
SPEAKER_01So but but we also had, you know, obviously there was some we could we were kind of in in financially uh more darker times during that period, and but we focused on the SMED events because again, get the changeovers as fast as possible. Now there's a good story there that and maybe as you talk to folks, uh back to the both the the academics or the the study is great, but finding the right guinea pig or two was was important in our organization. So we found if you remember uh Elmer and who's still with us, who's celebrating his seventh year with us next week, and he wants everybody to remember that.
SPEAKER_00Okay. But he had such a good saying his name on here.
SPEAKER_01No, I'd we'd be happy to. He'd be happy to do it.
SPEAKER_00Hello, Elmer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Elmer's Elmer's uh still on the drills and still loves it. However, he uh he was a great, he had the right attitude as we began to do some of these SMET events that he didn't we were doing videoing of of his changeovers, and he when we reviewed the video, he was absolutely amazed. He said, I can't believe I walked around that machine four times looking for a hammer. And and and so the Smed event was so powerful, but it was also that we found a really good first candidate, and he was a great example to the rest of the organization, that it wasn't a personal attack. Yeah, we and he really I want to be better, and so that led to some formalized changeover cards that you you you've again have have advocated where you only have the tools you need, you don't have in it all it in our case we put it on um shadow foam, you know, so that it's this hammer, you know, we don't and that was our primary changeover. Those were again were the deep hole drills, and and as doctrine predicts, we went from about an hour of changeover to right about 30 minutes. You cut it roughly in half when we have the tools and then have the you know, not walking around the machine two or three times.
SPEAKER_00That that's uh it's such a good story because I I don't think that's rare. I mean, I I think that that's pretty common that an operator will do stuff, but they just don't realize because they've done it forever, right? They've done it the same way, yes. And so when you can sit down and look at it, yeah, that that's a really good story. Because then you got that. So you got you move, you went from 500 to 24, you cut your change over in halves. You're you were set to go to a high mix.
SPEAKER_01We we we certainly adapted to the high mix better, yeah. And then here in in the recent um in 25 and and all the way through 26, I I think the mix has kind of moved a little, it's a little lower mix, a little higher volume. And again, our our plant then has come back into a little bit of focus. Yeah. And I like that. And again, but the system continues to work.
SPEAKER_00And you, and you, you know, you've got the like you talked about Rick Doubt. I mean, he's probably, you know, when I think of the best leaders I've ever worked with in this, you know, in this world that we live in, in this lean world, he's he's probably the top. I mean, you know, there's I've probably got a top three or four, and man, he's good. And and he just he knows it's gonna work. And that's what I think is fun to watch. You know, he goes to new plants, and of course, now you know he's buying facilities and he just knows it's gonna work. I think this is the fifth or sixth different company we've worked with, and it's always a pleasure to work with him because he drives, right?
SPEAKER_01And and and absolutely, and again, the the the system works in a arguably a uh you know huge volume and even multiple plants around either the country or or even multinational to little places like Tactical Kinetics that's you know that we're you know, it works for us.
SPEAKER_00It's funny because I still have that picture in my head when I first walked into that old facility and those green bins everywhere. Uh-huh. I thought and and in my mind I'm thinking there's money laying everywhere.
SPEAKER_01And there was. And there was, there was.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, you know, also in in the act of going, and you're right, it we still treat those 24-piece packets sort of single-piece flow, but let's say but it definitely works. We also we saw a dramatic uh increase in productivity by doing that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So when you first saw the green bins in the old plant, we we were about 15, maybe we could produce about 15 an hour. Okay. Just by laying out the plant in a in a much more thoughtful and methodical, um, you know, we went to uh you know, almost a 20% improvement. It went to, you know, 17, 18 per hour. But then when we went to the near single piece flow, we jumped up to almost 24 an hour. And the vi it the visual cues were what was was so important that uh if some of the operators not to be necessarily negative, would uh would work hard, they produce their batch quickly. But the next operator, well, he wasn't quite as fast. And then the next operator was a little faster, but then the one after that. But once you have uh near single-piece flow in our case, or single-piece flow, the whole line gets balanced, and everybody begins to see, and it it was a it became a healthy competition that oh, so and so's a little slower, you need to speed up, or or vice versa.
SPEAKER_00It's very what is so cool about because you guys are one of the best, like going from batch to flow stories just because it's so easy to see, like when you talk about it, and when you see it. But I think one of the things that's important for me to convey to the people that I work with is we never changed how you actually make a barrel. That's correct. Yes. Right? The the actual value added part of you making a barrel, we never touched. It was just how we scheduled and how we flowed. Yes, we did.
SPEAKER_01And it was it was game changing. And and that too, I I've listened to a couple of your podcasts and uh You know, there was there was one here recently and I think your your guest was talking about how he used to focus. I would I just want to get a few seconds out of each operation. And really we didn't to your point, Chris, we didn't take any initially didn't take any seconds out of the operation. But by getting it balancing and then have these these visual cues and a pull and becoming truly a pull system rather than a push system, we went substantially up in productivity without actually changing any of the way we made the product.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. The the actual time and contact. And what I find is that the quality gets better. Yes. But it's not because we changed anything other than the one-piece flow. Indeed. Indeed. So you're so we can change subjects a little bit here. Okay. Um, so you're a neat guy, right? So you've had multiple businesses, right? And well, first of all, you started that one in your garage, right?
SPEAKER_01That's correct. My my business partner and I started in a one and a half car garage. It turns out 15 years ago, right about now.
SPEAKER_00So I gotta tell you something, because I I'm sure we've talked about this. I'm like this closet machinist, which means I'm not a machinist at all, but I want to be one. So my daughter just started working with HLS, right? Okay, she is uh uh by degree a computer science engineer. This is Ruby. Yeah, Ruby. Okay, you've met Ruby. Yeah, I've read Ruby. Okay, and so Ruby is a programmer, okay, right? And so I'm like, okay, Ruby, what do you think about this? And so I let her watch a little bit. She's like, that's kind of cool. And then we watched um uh Titan on Titan CNC, right? And one of his clips, he says, I'm good because I'm a programmer. And and I'm like, oh, wait a minute. And so, long story short, Ruby and I have purchased a CNC mill. Okay, all right, supposed to be here at the end of the month. Now, let me tell you what I expect. All right, I'm gonna tell you a story. So, dad and I were big hunters, right? And when he and I first got our bows, we knew nothing. This is how dad and I have learned stuff. I I learned it from him, it was great lessons. So we got these compound bows and we went out to shoot them, right? We didn't have releases, we didn't we had kita sites on there, and we were trying to shoot these compound bows into these hay targets that were made for like pe. Yeah, so so and we're flinging arrows everywhere, no idea what we're doing today. It's one of our favorite things to do together. Okay, so I told Ruby, I said we're gonna buy this thing, and our goal is just not to break it in the first few weeks.
SPEAKER_01That's it. That's it.
SPEAKER_00Yes, let's see if we can make something and then see what happens. Because one, you know, I I just think it'd be I've always wanted to do it. I'm not getting any younger. Yes. I mean, it's you know, if you're gonna do it, you do it. Um, do it in my garage with her. I there's not a whole lot to lose, but man, the fun we can have just learning something new. Yes. And then um, you know, it's funny though, like I don't know even what we're gonna make. I got no customers, I got no nothing. I'll figure it out later, I guess. It's the it'll come, it'll come.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, it you know, and and that's the best way if you guys are dedicated. I you know, that's how I got into the machining business, is I was calling it the field of dreams way of starting a business. That that's it, that's it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but um, and I told her the other day, I said, you know what's really gonna bother because I do see needs for some of the stuff, like specifically with material flow and and jigs and fixturing and and some of that stuff, right? That now, but she's the one that's gonna, but I told her, I said, what's really, really gonna bother me a lot is when you're better at it than I am, and I know it's coming, it's gonna be proud of you, but it's gonna bother just like when you got better at video games than me.
SPEAKER_01That's it, that's it.
SPEAKER_00But the reason I kind of won, I wanted to tell you that I finally did it, right? Yeah, good, but we didn't buy it. But you're you've had a lot of companies, right? You that but I think this one's cool. Like you're the classic American story, right? Started in your garage. I mean, your only downfall is the the college team you root for, which I'm not gonna get into that. No, no, I mean we can't. But uh, but you also have had other businesses, right?
SPEAKER_01Well, I have we have, you know, Jeff and I have and I have have dabbled in and worked in a couple of others and and have brought uh you know you, and again, we'll go back to the mentor to both of us is is Rick uh Dalk, and you know, but has inspired, I think, both of us to be, you know, to try to but but I've become you know a bit of a a lean missionary. That this is holy cow. Uh it it was game-changing. But it as you've said on a couple that once you see you can't unsee, um, and you you and I have talked about that, then I'd like to you know, I've like to try to bring that to a couple of other places. But I've had some fascination with uh you know applying these lean principles. You know, you ask about cars or or whatever. I'm fascinated with um you know the business of exotic or or old cars, and uh I'm still working on it or thinking about it, but hey, can you apply this? And I think that I think the answer is absolutely yes, to low volume, low low volume, low mix, yeah, and and try to create some standard practices that would allow a restoration process, you know, to to proceed at a at a proper and and predictable pace.
SPEAKER_00Well, when you got your when you get your own TV show on on uh what is it motor? What's the uh I forget what the name of the what's the name of the stay the TV station's got all the car shows? I can't even think of motor. Okay, I can't think of it, yeah. But uh when you get your TV show, you know, let me come on there. So you know, I'd appreciate that. I can that that would be cool. John's John's restorations. Maybe I could be your comedic relief.
SPEAKER_01Something like that, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's you'll play by play your color. I mean, we'll uh we'll we'll have that.
SPEAKER_00So well, that's cool, man. Uh yeah, it's just it's always fun to talk. I I just enjoy talking with you just because the attitude you brought, like you were like, I don't know if I like that. It makes sense, but I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. You were just a great guy to work with, and then you just kept trying a little enough to get a little bit of it, and then once you got it, it was like I just got to get out of the way now. I'm I'm in the way, yeah, yeah, in the way. And I'm I'm out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, we we you know, and we've continued to evolve in within the the systems that we've created, and but trying to continue to use the principles that that you've taught us. And so some of the things that we've done over the last, and again, you haven't been in in I guess a year. You were in the plan about a year ago, if I recall, um, maybe in the summer.
SPEAKER_00I had a beard.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and uh I think your daughter had just graduated or was in the process. Okay. So that's when I met her. She she came down to visit with you. And so, but we have adapted a little to um the line instead of being quite as linear. We've been looking at, and and again, having gone through the pain of having set the set the plan up for really high volume, low mix, and then found ourselves in a high mix scenario or higher mix scenario, we've relayed out so that that the operators, there's there's a couple less operators because they have to walk a shorter distance.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And in the event, you know, that you're in high changeover mode, we can have a little bit more. So we've we've we liked it, it was so clear, but we've gone into a little bit more of like U-shaped. Okay. But it's still the material must flow, and I want it to flow in one direction, just like we've laid out. Yeah. But just just put where we got less less distance for the operators to move, um, and then perhaps be able to do some of the same work that while the machine's running in one place that an operator. And if you recall, we have very short cycle times on um each of our operations. So it really didn't it sort of behooved us to to have an operator per machine. And then we've we've drifted a little bit. I say it drifted, we've evolved a little bit to you know having um one operator for for multiple machines. Yeah. And so that'll be a difference, but still, materials flowing. You I guess we're all on a podcast, but materials flowing, we we don't want it to bounce all over the place. It flows in a there's still the visual cues. We're still using the 24 piece, and it and it we just continue to evolve on that system.
SPEAKER_00So let me ask you this kind of last question, and then we can kind of wrap up. What yeah, what how has AI impacted anything you're doing?
SPEAKER_01So we are really we're beginning the process of embracing it. It is helping us uh analyze data. So we have an MRP system that is is uh uh again allowing us to monitor uh the flow of of material, but now we're monitoring the flow of information. And this is quality data and cycle time, flow or throughput, but as well as downtime. And what used to be a very laborious to get into the database, get the data out, drop it into an Excel, and then maybe use macros. Uh we're training an AI agent to go in and it does it for us. It does that repetitive task and then presents the data to us.
SPEAKER_00That's where I'm I'm seeing a lot, like especially when I was at the university, right? Anything I had to do that was that was gonna take me a couple hours, but could be done real simple, like write this for me and then I'll take it and fix it. Yes. Something that I could do. That's so it's where I I tend to think that email may be the biggest suck on productivity of all time. I think that this may be the the antidote.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and and there's there's AI agents that will now kind of be your virtual assistant and read your emails for you. Now you gotta wonder, you know, if you deal with confidential information, I don't know, but I don't. Uh in in general, I don't substantially deal. We've got a couple of you know, military and and or government customers that are sensitive about their information. So we've got to be careful. But we're using some of those agents to just be a virtual assistant. Here's here's emails you've got to address, here's a digest of just your stuff, and here's junk you want me to throw it away for you. But but one more that we're working on that I think is is really applicable to the that in our case, I think one of the next things we need to do is is quantify the changeover wheel that you've been talking about for a while. But then l have uh an agent potentially look at our schedule out into the future and then work uh you know within that and just here's the answer. Here's the best way to run this this and just again it's a methodical, repeatable methodology, but the here's the best way to run your schedule.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then present that to the scheduler, and in in our case, he can you know use his human mind and intuition to say, okay, I like I like this, um, but I happen to know if customer's gonna complain or something, and I'm you know, and we'll you know adapt a little bit. But I think that's where AI is is really working. What are those tasks that are predictable but are relatively computationally, mentally or computationally intensive, and train it to do it for you. And then use a little intuition to its intuition to see the patterns.
SPEAKER_00So uh it it's crazy. It's it's very fun to kind of figure out where it's going. Yeah. So I lied. I got one more question. Okay, that's fine. Have you guys done anything with additive manufacturing at all?
SPEAKER_01We're we're getting into our first one, okay, which is is a and we're still working on it, but it it's in general, no, because most of ours are bar stock, you know, just round, small bars. And we, you know, being a gun barrel and for the additive people out there, I don't want to offend anyone, but we can't tolerate voids or any type of a stress riser that might result in a crack and then a catastrophic burst. But you know, ours, I think, lends itself, at least in the in the foreseeable future, to subtractive and and and the fact is we're not subtracting that much. It's a round in generally a round bar.
SPEAKER_00You know where it could help you guys is having just making tools for your shop.
SPEAKER_01Indeed.
SPEAKER_00That's an interesting. But I think my fascination with is that right, I can fit like I was in a plant this week and we were talking about um how we could deliver these certain trays for small parts. Yes, you 3D print those, right? Yes, just 3D print them, now you got them. Um yeah, yeah. But then I think what fascinates me the most is that we don't know what we can do, indeed. Because we've spent our whole careers subtractive manufacturing, we've never designed anything to be additive. So, like when I make something on my little 3D printer, I'm always looking at the inside, it's not hollow, but it's solid, right? Yeah, well attached or and then just some of the things that we can design. So who knows what the future holds.
SPEAKER_01Well, we we you know we're we're barrels, but a very you know parallel and and um complementary uh you know industry to ours is suppressors, which have become you know very popular. And almost, I won't say all of them, I don't know everybody, but a substantial number of those people in the in that manufacturing absolutely use additive manufacturing because you can you know the the gases can be routed in a very unique way and very difficult to subtractively manufacture. And those guys are I won't say exclusively, but there's a substantial amount that are employing additive manufacturing in in that part of a in the firearms market.
SPEAKER_00Very, very interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you should you should go if you haven't had a chance that you was to visit some people that do that kind of thing. And wow, you know, they're just they're just printing titaniums and inconnails all day long with these complex shapes to to Wow. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, John, it is great to talk with you, Mike. Good to talk to you, man. Yeah. Call every once in a while, you know.
SPEAKER_01I think Well I know you you've moved out of Lexington, but it's uh, you know, we need to get you we need to get you down and I'm in Indianapolis now, so it's not too bad. No, it isn't. But get you down and uh we'll we'll we've like I say we've moved some machines around, we've we've reorganized um the shop just this summer. Uh summers are slow in this in this industry. We usually try to do our moves in the in the summertime. So uh we'll have to get you down and show you the plan again.
SPEAKER_00Well tell tell tell Elmer I said hi. Tell Carlos I said hi. Tell us I said hi. Um tell them I didn't make any wise cracks about any any college football teams or anything because I save those for in-person conversation.
SPEAKER_01We'll save those for in-person.
SPEAKER_00We'll uh you guys do a good job of being on offense when I get there.
SPEAKER_01That's right. We're always ready for you, aren't we?
SPEAKER_00Yes, wearing shirts and everything. That's it. That's it.
SPEAKER_01That's it. Carlos plans that. That's it. Those uh that that orange, you know, that's that's orange. That's what we wear. Amen. It's good to talk with you. All right, buddy. See ya. All right, bye. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_00This has been the Leaning Out with Dr. Chris Podcast. We sure hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions or you have any ideas for the show, or you have a question you'd like for us to answer, please let us know. Send us an email at podcast at HarrisLeansystems.com. That's Podcast at Harrisleansystems.com. Also, feel free to check us out online at www.harrisleansystems.com.