Manufacturing Leaders

Kieron Wood: Harnessing Data for Supply Chain Success

• Mark Bracknall • Season 10 • Episode 6

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Kieran Wood, General Manager of Tiger Lifting, explores how data is reshaping supply chain management.

🚀 The shift from relationship-based decision-making to data-driven strategies
 🔍 Why understanding processes is crucial before digitalization
 🤝 Engaging frontline staff for successful tech adoption
 📦 Reshoring trends and supply chain capacity challenges
 💰 Optimizing processes to reduce costs and improve efficiency

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Please subscribe to the channel for more content! Theo James are a Manufacturing & Engineering Recruiter based in the North East, helping Manufacturing and Engineering firms grow across the UK. Please call us on 0191 5111 298

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to an episode of the Manufacturing News Podcast with me, mark Ragnall Mine, director of Theo James Recruitment. Today we welcome on Kieran Wood, the General Manager of Tiger Lifting. Kieran is someone I've spoken to many times over the years, so I couldn't wait to have him on the show and we talked about all things supply chain and logistics and, in particular, an area Kieran is extremely passionate about and that is data Arming yourself with the right data to make better informed decisions, improve efficiencies, reduce lead time and just generally getting the new age of manufacturing and engineering. We talk about all things data. We talk about challenges in supply chain and manufacturing right now. We talk about the future and our predictions of what it looks like, and this is just generally an episode where, if you are passionate about supply chain or you want to know a little bit more about supply chain logistics, then you will enjoy this episode. So please sit back, listen, enjoy, whether you watch or listen. Please, please, please, just do with the honor of just clicking that like and subscribe button. It really helps me grow the channel. So thank you very much. Hope you enjoy the episode. Gorilla the channel. So thank you very much hope you enjoy the episode Excellent.

Speaker 1:

A massive warm welcome today to Kieran Wood, the general manager of Tiger Lifting. How are we, kieran, how we doing? You all right, I'm good, thanks, mark. How are you Very good? Thank you, kieran, very good, I'm looking forward this one, looking forward to learning a lot about the supply chain and logistics world. But before I do that, first question is the same question I ask everyone what does it mean to you, kieran, to be a leader?

Speaker 2:

would you say, oh, I think it's understanding the impact you have on people. Do you know the people of your team, the people that you interact with, um, and, of course, the people in the team, the people that you interact with, and, of course, the people in the businesses that you're working for? You know you're there to kind of deliver their strategic ambitions. You're there to, you know, develop and nurture your team. So I think for me that has a massive impact. You know, it's an old saying you spend more time with your boss than you do with your family. Yeah, so choose wisely, you know. So, yeah, I think it's kind of realising that impact that you have on people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, have you ever felt that level of responsibility? What do you say? Because that's something that sometimes people don't realise until they're in the job, and then they actually feel it.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, um, you know you, you you still feel it. Um, supply chains, uh, a strange animal. It doesn't get, it's probably doesn't get the recognition it deserves it. It kind of warrants in in terms of business structure, but you know it has a lot more kind of variables and you know, one minute you're dealing with a container blockage. So you know you've got your various stakeholders shouting for their materials or whatever the impact you have on customer plans. But you've got to remember as well that people like you're on your team. You know they're coming in and trying to do a good job. You know, and it's kind of having that kind of foresight to say, listen, I know things aren't ideal, but how do we get a win-win for everybody? You know, and kind of sometimes as well as kind of motivating our staff after a difficult day, after you've had difficult conversations. You know it's kind of gearing them up when you know tomorrow's a new day, we've had a bad day today, let's move on from that. And you know, get after the next year.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you have to be the one often leading from the front, don't you? And sometimes, when you don't feel like doing people up before, it's just part of the gig, but that's why there probably is no harder job than management. I want to take it very briefly back before we ask some questions on the supply chain piece, so people can learn from the stuff you do. Very briefly, ciarán, what led you to getting into manufacturing? Because I'm right in saying you started early doors with British Engines, obviously a very well-established group up here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so you know, back in the 90s. You know there was Back in the 90s. You know it was probably the biggest industry in the Northeast. You know the shipyards were still going to an extent mainly declining, you know, but it was seen as a kind of stable industry. Spent five years with the Division of British Engines making access platforms Fortunately made redundant and still in manufacturing, but not as much in engineering but in production roles. Right, and probably like 99% of supply chain people drifted into logistics and 27 years later still learning new things every day.

Speaker 2:

So it's in the northeast. There's some great businesses, established businesses, and they're still finding new problems. There's still new problems for professionals to resolve. You know, still new opportunities for businesses and it's not probably the last 10 years. What kind of motivated us to move back into manufacturing after a spell with print management was the rate of change in industry. You know, um, industry 4.0 was just being spoken about. You know we've developed with mrp, erp, digital twins and that's kind of. You know that just opened up new possibilities and that's kind of led to kind of where I am today and you know the kind of things that I do.

Speaker 1:

And what you mentioned, the changes there, and I agree. I mean even I think I've worked this industry now for 15, 16 years and I think over the last five years I've seen the supply chain logistics world just suddenly become so prominent, probably because there's probably been more development but also issues than ever before and companies have had to lean on their supply chain to help. Now, what would you say is the biggest change from now to when you first started?

Speaker 2:

The use of data.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And you know before it was, it was and it still is very relationship-based. You know Yep, everything was. You know we've dealt with this company companies providing a good service. The cost of changing is more than you'll get back in terms of benefit. Everything was very anecdotal. You know now the scale in terms of number of stock keeping units of business keeps. You know the number of industries of business operates and markets of business operates, the number of industries that business operates and markets that business operates. It's progressed from that with computer systems. That gives people access to a lot of data.

Speaker 2:

But people need to be able to interpret the data. What does that data tell them? You talk about the last probably five years or so in supply chain and its prominence, but this data for the last five years, how do businesses interpret that? Because since covid, you know there's been shutdowns, shortages. You know, even in 2021-22 there were still shutdowns in Asia. So the data will tell you one picture, but it's having the people with the experience to say, yeah, we're sales, or were that yeah, in July, but that was pent up demand because of shutdowns et cetera in these periods. So we need to be able to kind of smooth out that lumpy demand and kind of use that for forecasting. But it's people skills. You know it's people with that market knowledge. It's people with that market knowledge. It's people with that subject domain knowledge, people who can take that data and interrogate it. And you know that's.

Speaker 2:

The difference now is it's a lot more data-driven and it's a lot more. You know traditionally crunching numbers. That you know previously. Our finance guys would you know crunching numbers that you know previously. Our finance guys would you know crunch the numbers that tell you you know you're spending too much in this area, spending too much in that area. This is what we need to do, you know now you know we're going to the finance guys to say holding too much inventory, sales aren, sales aren't being met, so you need an increased inventory. It's having an issue on cash flow for businesses Operationally. These are our challenges. This is, I think it should be, our strategic plans. This is where I think we should target investment. These are the markets we should target. You know this is where I think we should target investment. These are the markets we should target. You know its supply chain now is much more strategic and that's become enabled by the technology. Before it was traditionally just a cost center.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting that, isn't it? Because I've had quite a few people on here on the supply chain side who have talked in depth about that relationship piece, which is obviously you've said yourself it's still so important, you know to lean on on suppliers and relationships, but we've not really talked that much on here about that data piece, which I think is interesting and I think actually it lends itself to just the way manufacturing as a whole is going, isn't it? And you look at the change of skills that people still need to be good at building relationships and dealing with people, but actually they need to do that whilst analysing data, which pleases me in a way, because that doesn't necessarily fit the narrative that people are going to be replaced by automation. It fits the narrative that people will just work hand in hand and make better results and make better decisions based on that, which I think is fascinating. I think it's exciting for the industry.

Speaker 1:

Personally, if you were going into a business for the first time and they had none of this, it was relatively old school. It was exactly what you said there. All the finance people decided everything based on on their numbers. It was just on very traditional relationships for suppliers they've had for 15, 20 years. What would be the first things you would look at in a business or advise them to to do so? On the data piece, would you say it's understanding your processes.

Speaker 2:

I think your think your first step in any kind of digitalization journey is understanding your processes, understanding your business, because ultimately, once you start capturing data, it'll ask a lot of questions of you. So you need to understand. You know, product A has sat here for 45 minutes. Why do you know what I mean? Yeah, because that's your bottleneck work center. That work center, there's a queueing time, there's a setup time. You know it's. It's arguably being able to understand at what point is there should data be collected. What's the right data to collect, you know. And then obviously then the pieces. Once you've, once you've, done that pieces, then how do we collect it and what do we do once we've, once we've, once we've, once we've started collecting that you know.

Speaker 1:

What would you say when you go into business, the common pitfalls I would say you know in terms of they might be collecting the wrong data entirely or you know what for you, do you think are the most important things to look at to make you know a positive change?

Speaker 2:

I think you know it's revisiting that process piece. I can't speak enough about processes because that underpins everything. People in their processes depend on deciding their profitability. Sometimes people haven't revisited the process for a long time. So the understanding of that process it has to be a long time. So the understanding of that process, so you know it has to be a repeating cycle all the time of you know, auditing processes. Is that process still current? Is it still relevant, is it still the right thing to do? And then kind of giving your teams ownership as well of the process.

Speaker 2:

Okay, because I think the biggest thing is, you find is the biggest failure of any implementation or any project to kind of drive efficiencies is a lack of engagement.

Speaker 2:

You know, getting the people in as well. Sometimes it's the guy that's doing the job every day that understands the little intricacies, the details. That's the difference between buying a piece of technology that's going to give you 7% productivity gains or a £400,000 piece of machinery that's going to collect dust in the corner of your factory. You know that's the importance of the kind of people and processes and that's why it has to be kind of a repeating cycle, so bottom, top down and then bottom back up, kind of like a pyramid, like a kind of pyramid. So top down from your strategy and bottom up on delivery of that, and that I think that for me is the best way of combining both aspects. You know the strategic piece from the C-suite. You know the senior leadership team and the business knowledge of the people on the front line doing the job every day. You know the people that have made the adaptations over the last 10 years to deliver a quality product that there is what's going to be the difference between success and failure in a project.

Speaker 1:

Is there almost a good place to start Because, like you said, there half the battle will be trying to bring people on the journey with you, and this is the way we've always done it. So why should we change? Is there almost like a starter kit for a 75, 80-strong manufacturing business who really just isn't on board yet or doesn't have that sort of mentality, shall we say?

Speaker 2:

It's about having that vision. Why do we need to change? Don't start with a solution in mind. Start with the problem. This is why we need to change. Because of rising costs, we're no longer competitive in these markets. How do we address that markets? You know, how do how do we? How do we address that? You know it might be a case of, you know, getting the next level down of management to kind of be involved, to own their departments, to get more, to get more brainstorming together, and then, you know, they're responsible as evangelists to sell the change and to say this is the benefit it's got.

Speaker 2:

We're not going to replace you. This isn't done to replace you. This is done to be able to do more with what we've got. This is going to enable us to grow to the next level, to be able to compete, to guarantee jobs and drive growth. Yeah, because people ultimately are suspicious. You know it's about human nature. We're not going to. You know it's kept alive for thousands of years. You know what I mean. We're going to change that. We're not going to change that overnight. I mean, if not, we're going to change that and we're not going to change that overnight. So it's about showing them what's achievable.

Speaker 1:

Apologies for interrupting this episode with a very quick announcement about my business. Theo James are a specialist talent provider specifically to the manufacturing and engineering sector. I'm incredibly proud of what we've achieved since our inception in 2015. We specialize in roles from semi-skilled trades right the way up to our TJ exec search arm of the business. Both on the contract and permit side, we offer both bespoke one-off campaigns for hard-to-fill roles or a full partnership service where we become an extension of your business. For any information, please get in touch with me or the team. I hope you enjoy the rest of the episode, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Taking some of their biggest bugbears and getting some quick wins and show them how you know this was done based on listening to them. You know if we can take this away, that allows you to focus on more value-added work stuff which will give you job enrichment and drive the company on enable it to reach new markets. With that comes new teams. That gives people an opportunity to move into leadership roles. So, yeah, I think it's like like I say it's that culture piece, yeah, interesting.

Speaker 1:

And if you're a, an md or director of business, who or you are in charge of the budget, shall we say, and you need some convincing, you know how expensive can this be to start the journey of, you know, bringing that digital art to their, their business? Because obviously, like you said, some machines and processes are quite eye-watering and, and right now we're probably going to be in the the hardest manufacturing market I've ever seen personally, with the costs getting way out of control. So, what you know, if you were sat in front of them, being had to convince them to start that journey, in this climate, what would your first thing you would say?

Speaker 2:

would you say it's about how having that kind of review of the current business, kind of how the business is operating model now you know where there was. Where can we engage the teams to review current processes, to map them out, to look at that kind of value value stream mapping piece, start, start with that, engage the teams and then you know you've got some numbers. You can turn around and say current process the cumulative lead time is 19 days. We're not winning work or having to put overtime on because the customer wants 14 days. We can take these five days out as part of our standard operating model. That reduces the overtime and enables to be more successful with work. So you're able to paint numerically, able to give some numbers on the impacts of that.

Speaker 2:

You've got an 80% quote conversion rate in that last 20% is due to the lead time not being correct. That's a 20% potential 20% uplift in revenue with that rate of profits. You know you've got an overtime bill because you're not scheduling work properly, because you haven't reviewed your thing. You know overtime bills for companies can be significant, especially when you know the more skilled labor you've gotten, the more you're paying. You know you want to be able to try and get a better standard rate and not rely on overtime. You know, and so that's for me, is how you get that.

Speaker 2:

Build them quick wins. Paint a picture quickly on you know what's the what's the value add from this, and then it's in light of what the value stream map is thrown out what's the best kind of solution to get you started on that journey, because you know sap isn't going to be the best solution for a 30 strong machine shop, you know. But there's, there's, there's a lot of small businesses offering adaptable solutions, that with a smaller body of entry, that will give people their options and enable them to start on that kind of transformation piece, embed the ways of working in with the team so that when they do grow they are ready to evolve further. The culture piece isn't as difficult because people have been working this way to a smaller scale over the last two to five years.

Speaker 1:

I know a lot of people talk about lead time production, how critical that is. I hear that a lot in the industry. What role do you think that plays in the sort of reducing costs and sort of improving efficiency, I guess, with a manufacturing business?

Speaker 2:

Honestly, because of consumer habits, we all want everything today. If we don't get next-year delivery, chances are we're not going to buy something from an online platform.

Speaker 2:

You know, and businesses work the same in that Lead time reduction forces you to look at your processes. It forces you to look at your inventory. You know inventory is one of the biggest capital costs that any business has got. It's one of the biggest impacts to cash flow. You know, traditionally it's a small cost. We'll just get loads of stock. You know. But as products develop, obsolescence gets bigger.

Speaker 2:

You know you can't use the same methods because ultimately it's time of too much capital and at the end of the year you've got too big a write-off for stuff like you're no longer moving, that you've either got a discount or dispose of.

Speaker 2:

So it really focuses because if you can take 10 days out your lead time, that's 10 days of unhand stock you can take out of the process you don't need. You know you've streamlined your inventory as a function of your lead time. So if you can reduce your lead time, you can reduce the amount of inventory you need to hold, both in component pieces and in finished goods. Then you extend that through to your supply chain, working with your first tier suppliers to reduce their lead time into you. So then your safety stocks you can further reduce your safety stocks. That enables you to free up capital to invest in growth. Most small businesses I know would rather have £100,000 tied up in a machine which is going to generate revenue than £100,000 of slow-moving stock that they're going to have to discount or write off at the end of the year.

Speaker 1:

Makes sense. What are your predictions? They're going to have the discount rate off at the end of the year. Yeah, makes sense. What are your predictions? Because you know we mentioned there in terms of before, you know, kovid, a good example and and and you know supply chain logistics. It's just been so up and down and volatile, I guess. Um, you know, we even saw that on the the volume side post-covid, we saw a massive spike of businesses needing planners, buyers and, and suddenly they were concentrating on that stock piece and then we saw a dip, and we saw a dip for quite some time and now it's probably slowly but surely back on the radar for most businesses. But, as we mentioned before, there are so many issues right now with costs, competition, delays, all these sort of stuff now which is affecting businesses being able to import, export and just affecting the whole supply chain logistics piece. Is it, you know? And and its entirety? What would you say? What trends are you seeing and where do you see the next sort of few years going in the industry, you think?

Speaker 2:

I think probably, you see, you're seen it, you've seen the US. Now the look to reshoring I think I think you'll see a contraction of some markets, you know, where reshoring becomes the norm for a lot of industries. Uk is blessed and we've got some very specialised engineering industries which were very strong competitively. But from a consumer, like consumer goods et cetera, I think you will see market shrinkage. So you know, companies have traditionally spent a lot more export. I think that them revenues will kind of reduce and the the domestic market will become more prevalent. And then obviously that puts a new, that puts a different strain on last mile logistics. And is there enough capacity in the UK network, which one of the biggest problems that we're seeing now is in the haulage system? There's a lot of carriers kind of going out of business due to costs. You know I think you're going to see a kind of kind of pendulum swing, because I think that's going to get to the point where costs have been squeezed that much Operate as a going out of business. Then you're going to be left with a small um capacity in the network which is going to drive costs back up. You're going to see that. You know, you've seen it during COVID, with freight container prices going, you know, three and a half times the price that it previously was due to supply and demand, you're not going to see that swing in domestic haulage, but I think you will see a significant swing.

Speaker 2:

Once kind of you've had a you've had a settling of businesses which are which are being able to make sustainable businesses and then what their ability to charge in the market is, and currently you've got an abundance of. You've had an abundance of. You've had an abundance of people where companies have invested in vans to clear the backlog brought on by COVID. Brexit. Brexit led to a lot of stockpiling in the end of 2019, when nobody knew what the relationship was going to be, knew what the relationship was going to be. Haulage networks has grown massively then. Now you know people have been bidding low cost on work to keep wagons moving in the hope that the work will become more profitable over time. A lot of people. Fortunately, it hasn't been successful for them, you know. So that for me, I think will be one of the biggest issues that you have over the next couple of years is domestic network capacity.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, interesting. Interesting enough, we run an event with Durham University. It's all about Billwell. Part of it will be about building Brazilian supply chains, but we wanted to talk about the challenges of the market and, interestingly, when you put the options out to people supply chain professionals overwhelmingly they said the biggest challenge right now is costs. That's the biggest challenge from bar one and how you manage that, which is tricky, isn't it? Because obviously it's quite multifaceted, that you know the costs, all manufacturing costs, and all you know the costs, all manufacturing costs, and all you know the the hike in minimum wage and national insurance contributions. That's going to just hit and it is, we're seeing it now hit manufacturing businesses. But when they talk about the challenge of costs, I'm presuming that is also because everyone is passing costs on and I imagine that's a bit of a headache as well on the supply chain piece, plus import, export costs and all that coupled with that. It just seems to be everything at once, isn't it at the moment?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, you know you talk about the increase in minimum wage. You know it's really, really difficult because it's a double-edged sword where you want to be able to pay people more but there needs to be a piece by leaders to be able to ensure that that increase is done with a value add. Because if it's just the cost that's going to be passed on to customers, with no improvements in efficiencies, with no change in the current model, that's not sustainable. Because if a company's wage bill is 30% of their total of their costs and they get a 10% increase in that, based on minimum wage and national insurance contributions, best will in the world, they're going to pass a 3% Price increase onto the end customer, which is another manufacturing business or retailer, which is going to make them uncompetitive with businesses which are more streamlined and more efficient.

Speaker 2:

Government needs to be kind of mindful that there's a development piece around the workforce. That needs to be done because in the current climate, unless, unless that development piece is put in place, that will kind of rise in automation. It makes the, it makes the return on investment bigger, you know so. So we need to make sure that you know, whilst labor costs are rising, that's probably going to make the break even point for automation lower. So we need to make sure that we're developing my teams, and that's both on a on an organizational level and on a national level, to be able to move with the times, to move with the shifting industry.

Speaker 2:

You know how do the guy who was previously on the production line, you know he then becomes working with a co-bot, for instance, on packaging, whatever you know, routine maintenance, you know, or running a cell and taking that data in to say, you know, is the shift performing how we expect it to be? You know, and it's about, yeah, there's a big piece around in it and it's, you know, it's massively multifaceted, as you say, you know there's a cost. Is that? You know we want to be able to? Businesses want to be able to pay people more, but it needs to be done within the constraint of, you know there's an end price which people are prepared to pay for a product. So we just everybody needs to be kind of mindful of where, where we are going over the next two to ten years probably.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, 100%, and you make a valid point there as well about you know we also need to attract people to the sector. You know the future of manufacturing is one of the biggest challenges is because there's not enough good people coming through. And you know the minimum wage increase. I don't think does that, because it's a minimum wage increase, so those same people at that level could still be working now in hospitality and so on and so forth, you know, or something less stressful for that same salary. But there needs to be a way to attract people to this.

Speaker 1:

I might have been naive and optimistic here, but if you link all this in with that data piece I've got kids and they are obsessed with iPads and technology Does that lend itself? Now the fact that if you look at a professional within logistics and supply chain, we need to bring people on who are good at building relationships. So there's that customer service piece and confidence piece. But actually that is now coupled with the fact that they're going to be working with technology and data, which I actually think the new generation would much prefer. Do you see that? Or am I just being no?

Speaker 2:

no, that's that's. That's that's you know you're going to have. You know, no, that's you know you're going to have. You know, in the US, in Japan, you know you have supply chain engineers, yeah, you know the engineer, it's industrial engineering expanded outside the four walls of a factory, you know, and that's going to get bigger and bigger because just because the numbers involved, you know that and that massively changes the, the people requirements, the skills requirements of of engine, of logisticians, you know.

Speaker 2:

So see, if you look at our gravity design on, you know the business look now expanding to a market and wants to look at where should it set up its next warehouse. You know it's that piece around. Well, okay, where does the data tell how many parcels do we ship and how many miles right and at what cost? So that then you know, you take the math and that tells you, you put your fact, you put your, your next distribution center here, because that that gives you the optimum cost and that they're, you know the, the penetration into these markets. You know, and then people obviously need to go and set up that factory. So you need people who are there, who can understand factory layout, different types of manual handling, equipment, automation. How do you specify what's the right one? You take that as what's the throughput of your warehouse expected to be? How do you factor something for growth? So what's the right investment? You know these are. These are questions that traditionally weren't asked. If the supply chain people. So I think probably now it is. It is that piece.

Speaker 2:

I think, from a supply chain point of view, we're probably where manufacturing was at, the the kind of advent of cnc machines, where they become more prevalent and moved away from manual lathes and milling machines into repeatable, bigger scale jobs. I think you'll see the same there. I think the modern supply chain professional needs to be data literate, the understanding of technology, business as well. Do you know what I mean? To be able to build that business case to, to show senior leaders or you know the fd that, yeah, this is the right way to spend your money. So, yeah, I think it massively changes. I think there's some good work coming around with some of the professional bodies. Silt has a next generation scheme, the IET does a lot of good work and I think kind of making people aware of logistics now isn't sitting in a port of cabin, in a, in a yard full of 15 wagons. Yeah, you know it's. It's massive, you know, and as massive with that comes new opportunities and rules that previously were never, were never in the supply chain.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's interesting, yeah, it's fascinating. I chain yeah it's interesting, yeah, it's fascinating. I think it sounds exciting because you know what we're talking about. There is the industry is changing and I think you know it feels me changing to be more efficient and more productive, and that is. I think that's great to hear. Why are you so passionate about it? Would you say Because some people just come to work and do their job and go home. You've took it upon yourself to work with businesses and want to change businesses. I know congratulations as well. I know you've got a new role at Tag Lift as GM and they've seen Hilly Doors. The advantage to having someone like yourself in.

Speaker 2:

what keeps you motivated now through all this, would you say erm someone like yourself in what keeps you motivated now through all this, would you say, um, it's just. I think it's a level of involvement you can have. You know the the problem, so you know I've always been interested in the problem solving aspect of it. You know what I mean. You know and you know probably what led us into manufacturing before leaving school. You know I was always interested in maths and physics and you know business now is the application of that. You know businesses are changing because of the markets. They're able to operate in the demands of the end customer. You know the advances in technology. You know, and it's a case of some things. You know the main applications were never where they're being used and currently now, you know, and I think it, for me it's that impact you can have in an emerging sector.

Speaker 2:

I don't think that's that's kind of many other areas of business where you can come in. You know, build a team, ensure demonstrable benefits so early on, you know, and it's and it's big benefits. You know companies that haven't looked at, companies that haven't looked at how their production processes are going on. You know Even just having a planner in right means that work centers are utilized more quickly. They've reduced. You know they've reduced the need for overtime and you know that's been able to target new growth. You know that's massive for somebody to come. You know to come in and being able to be able to do that, you know what I mean and the returns on that for businesses are huge. You know, and I think it's. You see, that the problems, problems never go away with. With the best will in the world, we're not going to eradicate something happening in in in asia, the us or whatever. You know it's about having the people with the skills to be able to navigate them disruptions to have the least impact on on a business and on the end consumer.

Speaker 1:

On the end consumer yeah, it makes sense, perfect sense. And look, I just want to thank you for this as well, because I find it really interesting because, like I think you said right to start, sometimes supply chain logistics is often the forgotten area of the business. It's just an area of business people just presume takes long, but it is so much more than that and it is the area where you can tackle so many issues and you can enable businesses to be more efficient and be leaner and meaner. And I think, as we're going into a very difficult marketplace right now, where there's a skill shortage, there is massive cost implications for various budget changes and everyone passing prices on, I think now is the time to look at your processes and sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate and it might mean bringing on some automation or a piece of kit, but, like you've just communicated during this episode, this is where businesses can be a lot more efficient.

Speaker 1:

And actually, what I found quite fascinating is that manufacturing 4.0, whatever you want to call it is changing. But I feel like this is really exciting. It's a massive, exciting change because it still keeps that. What I hate is when people just talk about people being replaced by machines and that's it. You know people keep telling me I'll be out of a job in five years because we'll be replaced, but replaced by all this amazing kit and CRMs and this type of stuff, and it will change the face of every industry like ours. But what I can't get away from is you still need, you will still want humans and people to interact with that data and that information, and I think that's exactly the same here, where you know people turn on crms.

Speaker 2:

Ai will be doing their job. In five years, there's no need for a recruiter. Yeah, right, yeah, who's who's going to reach out to a thing? You know who's who has that relationship. You know where you've you've placed somebody in a role 10 years ago, right, you know you've. You've interacted on LinkedIn. You're speaking. You're speaking to businesses. You put events on. That. There is invaluable and you can't replicate that. You can take some of the data that them things will throw up and you can put them into a survey. You can put them into this. But what's AI going to do? It's going to throw out a survey, cold call off the back of that survey results or whatever. It's people to take that data and read that data. Whether that be in recruitment, whether that be in manufacturing, whether that be in supply chain, you know there's always people with domain knowledge. That's going to be needed. It'll help us work more, it'll help us be more efficient, but it's not going to, it's not going to replace people.

Speaker 2:

It just can't.

Speaker 1:

I completely agree. We just need to embrace it and go. You know what I mean? I completely agree. We just need to embrace it and go. Where else can we add value now? Because there will be certain tasks in every job which there is now no point in paying someone to do, and that's fine. But those people will be upskilled and will do a different job, and I just see that that is the future for me, where we just have to embrace it or we'll just fall behind, simple as that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's happened in agriculture, it's happened in, it's happening in in manufacturing and material handling. Do you know what I mean? People were previously manually handling a repeatable tasks. Now stuff comes off the end of a production line, gets lifted with a vacuum lift and put on a pallet and the pallet gets taken away on a forklift. Yeah, there's still people within them systems. Do you know what I mean? And ultimately that will. That will always stay the same. You know generative design will help people design products quicker, but there still needs people to design the inputs to, to take up, to get that product brief. Yeah, you know, understand the problem that the product's trying to solve. Whether that be in a system, whether that be in a recruitment piece, it's still that problem-solving piece. Ai is as only good as its prompt Somebody needs to write a prompt.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and we're still humans who want to talk to each other, not a robot, it's as simple as that. So, look, thank you, ken. This has been great, man, I really appreciate it. And, yeah, a lot of people have learned a lot from this episode. So, thank you, man, I really appreciate it thank you, mark.

Speaker 2:

Appreciate you for having us on.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for listening or watching this episode of the Manufacturing Leaders Podcast. Please, please, just like or subscribe. It really helps grow the show and obviously improve the industry. If you want any more information about Theo James, as I mentioned midway through the episode, please get in touch with me or the team. I would love to talk about how it can help you directly or your business. We are more than just a recruiter and I know people say that, but it's something I'm incredibly passionate about. We are in business for much more than just a bums on seats approach. We want to help people grow, we want to help improve their lives and, ultimately, I want to work with businesses and people who share the same values as we do, and that's something I'm incredibly passionate about. So please, if that is you and you are passionate about that dream role or passionate about your people, please get in touch with me or the team. I absolutely love to talk a bit more detail. Thank you very much. Speak soon.