Manufacturing Leaders

Data Driven Strategies to Minimise Cost and Quality Issues

• Mark Bracknall • Season 10 • Episode 7

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Ian Brown, Managing Director of Excelpoint Limited, shares insights on no-code technology and its transformative impact on the manufacturing and engineering sectors through data utilisation, process improvement, and technological innovation. His leadership philosophy centers on empowerment, accountability, and creating a culture where people feel valued.

  • Empowering Leadership & Decision-Making – Leading by example while encouraging team members to take ownership fosters a proactive and engaged workforce.
  • The Reality of No-Code & Automation – No-code technology has evolved over 22 years, enabling system creation without coding, while automation secures jobs rather than eliminating them.
  • Data-Driven Decision-Making – Transforming raw data into actionable insights helps leaders make informed, strategic decisions.
  • AI & The Future of Manufacturing – AI integration will reshape manufacturing, making practical, hands-on skills even more valuable.


Like and subscribe to help grow the Manufacturing Leaders podcast. Get in touch if you're looking for more than just recruitment - we want to help improve people's lives and work with businesses that share our values.

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

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 another episode of the Manufacturing News Podcast with me Mark Bracknell, marketing Director of Theo James Recruitment. Today we're welcoming on Ian Brown, the Marketing Director of XLPoint in New Daycliff. I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. I thought I would because I knew I'd learned quite a bit about no-code technology and I'm sure you're going to learn a lot about it as well. We talked about all things tech, all things software, but actually the impact that has on manufacturing and engineering.

Speaker 1:

What I found fascinating was this that we debunked some myths about the fear behind change and the fear behind replacing people to robots. We talked in detail about the type of data that manufacturing engineering companies should be using and should be analyzing to be more efficient as a business using and should be analyzing to be more efficient as a business. We talked about the future of engineering manufacturing and what that looks like in the world of AI technology and, obviously, no-code technology, and Ian, a tremendous leader, someone who's led his business now for 22 years talked about his management style, how leaders should be empowering people to make fully formed decisions, and then we finish off talking about the importance of how leaders should now have a personal brand. So please sit back and enjoy the episode and, whether you're watching or listening, please, please, please, as ever, just like and subscribe. It really helps me grow the channel, but hope you enjoy the episode. Thank you, massive warm welcome today to Ian Brown, the managing director of Excel Points in New Daycliff. How are we doing, ian? You all right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, good thanks, mark. Good to see you. Good to see you too. Good to see the weather's getting better these days after the winter.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. You know how it is. I've actually got the blinds shut in our office for once, because the sun sometimes shines through and that's a good sign. It's been a while since I've this morning, so just to have that. Yeah, my wife said the same, so really looking forward to getting this journey. First things first, same question I ask everyone that comes on what does it mean to you, Ian, to be a leader, would you say?

Speaker 1:

Oh, apart from doing, the washing up in the kitchen, putting the lights on and off, opening and locking the doors, sort of herding the frogs.

Speaker 2:

I think, for me, being a leader is about leading by example. It's about having aspirations, both for me as an individual, us as a company and a technology, and for all of the people that work for us. Young people quite often are a bit rudderless when they first come into the workplace, so I think, having aspirations for them as well, leading by example and showing empowerment, a lot of leaders will have levelled at them. He's the boss and everything goes through him, and nothing you know, everything's done his way or no way, and I don't believe in that at all.

Speaker 2:

I think when you empower people, you get a lot more out of them and, funnily enough, lots of people struggle with being empowered. In the first place, they don't know what to make of it. So, um, technical for us as a business, I would say technical innovation, and we're in a very uh techie marketplace. So it's always a massive challenge financial stability for us as a business, all of our customers and all of our employees. So good growth is crucial to all businesses. And then creating a culture where people feel valued. Um, so I think, when I mentioned empowerment earlier, if you, if you have a varied workplace and varied responsibilities and the ability to make some of your own decisions, which includes flexible working and flexible holidays and flexible all sorts. I think that creates a culture where people invest in the job and invest in the business, and our customers benefit from that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, 100%, and it's a great Go on. Sorry, mate.

Speaker 2:

No, I was just going to say is that the?

Speaker 1:

sort of thing that Absolutely, and actually I'd like to pick something out there. I think empowerment's probably not a word, actually I've heard, but it's such a good answer because it has so many connotations for that, and all of which positive. But actually I think what's interesting is a lot of people listen to this our leaders, our aspiring leaders and I think it can be hard to empower people because actually I think what a lot of leaders fall in the trap of and myself included, and it's something I'm still learning, but definitely really struggled in the early days was that you were so quick to give the answer to people's questions to fix things. You weren't necessarily empowering them and there's a big difference in there yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I mean it's a bit of a common phrase in industry, but I use it a lot, and that is don't bring me a problem, bring me a problem and bring me the solution to the problem. And if all you're looking for is do you think this is a good solution? That's different to here's a problem. Because I think where people get mistaken with empowerment, most people in industry will say I get bored at work. Well, if you're empowered, you shouldn't, because you're empowered to change things and make improvements.

Speaker 2:

But with that empowerment comes accountability, and that's a little bit different to responsibility, and therein lies a little triangle of accountability, responsibility and empowerment, where people can then make decisions for themselves. But if they do, when they get it wrong, they've got to take charge of that situation and make sure it's put right. Responsibility is where they come and give the problem to you and you then say here's the answer go away and do this. You're responsible for the doing. But the accountability is where you understand the underlying causes. Whether it's dissatisfaction or a delay in something or whatever. You've understood the underlying causes and not only can you fix this particular instance, but you can do something about it to make sure it doesn't happen again and improve.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you've run this business over 22 years, so your management journey before that would have obviously evolved. It's not an overnight thing, is it to get to that level? I imagine that has evolved for you, that management structure, because there will be people sat or driving and thinking I'm just, I need to get there, but where you know where do I start? Is it a case of just doing it with a couple of people asking what do you think first and building up or any advice you give on that?

Speaker 2:

I think I think what I would say about that for other leaders is um a. In my early I worked for two large organizations and I thought they were brilliant learning grounds. So I worked with some fantastic people and I'll have soaked up like a sponge information, learning techniques and so on, without even realizing it. So I think you've always got people around you which will have better or more detailed experiences in some aspects. So I might be an expert in something, but I'm not an expert in everything.

Speaker 2:

You can always draw on other people and I, as a leader, I take part in an organized group which includes I'll mention the name it's a group called Vistage. You can always cut that out if you need to. It's an organized group which includes I'll mention the name it's a group called Vistage. You can always cut that out if you need to. It's an organized group. It's a sort of peer group where they'll put sort of 12 to 15 people in a room that represent similar sizes of business not similar businesses, but similar sizes. So you all suffer the same sorts of problems, be it sales or marketing or revenue or, more likely, people and so on. So you can learn from that, and every day is a school day. As you can tell by this young, apparent face, I've only been doing this for two years, but you're never too young or too old to learn new skills, and I would actively do that, month by month, by month.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I completely agree and actually you know what's difficult sometimes If you are at the top. Often as a leader, you're looking for courses, for things to train people below you. But actually, what does a leader do? You know, what do you do. But I completely agree, the best thing to do is surround yourself with people going through those same challenges and just open and share, which, absolutely, absolutely, which is one of the reasons I started this podcast the first place. I don't think there's enough of it. I'm seeing more and there's some good networking firms out there, but I don't think it is still the norm in this industry. I would say, is it?

Speaker 2:

yeah, what you also find when you talk to other leaders. You understand that you as an individual don't have all the answers and you have gaps in your understanding. You have challenges and problems and you make mistakes and I think if you're alone in that, you might feel like you're failing, but when you talk to other leaders and I've had years of experience of that you realize that that is what being a leader is. It's making success even though you're in an imperfect world, and understanding that those challenges and those gaps and those mistakes and problems will come along. Good leaders are the people who can react, adapt and persevere to overcome those things. And I know the Royal Marines have a major aspect of their training which everybody thinks is massively physical and it is, but they have what they call determination tests. So what they're trying to establish all the time is how determined are you to achieve this thing? And I think good leaders in industry would rank highly on determination tests. Nothing knocks them back.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. Let's go back, obviously. I mentioned at the start there you've had this business for 22 years. Tell me a bit about, please, or tell people listening about, what ExcelPoint is, what they do and I guess, why you started the business would be interested in, okay.

Speaker 2:

So we're a software development company and I've been in software development my entire career, since leaving school, and I see lots of challenges and problems in the way software is both developed and sold and supplied to people. So we thought there must be a better way of doing this and we came up with and there was some heritage before this that I hadn't actually realized when we started the business. But we came up with the idea for a highly configurable, complex but easy to understand platform that people could build their own systems in without having to write any code, and there are a lot of benefits to that. Some of them are technical, some of the financial I won't bore you with that right now but the aim was to offer a different way, a different paradigm in the industry. Latterly recently that's caught on a lot more globally, so there's a lot more availability of platforms like us, which is bad because you have a lot more competition, but good because they're new entrants and they make a lot of mistakes, and we've been doing this for so long. We've solved a lot of the problems that they suffer from.

Speaker 2:

We started very small, so we were four people when we started, which is quite a common start point for businesses and we've just grown organically at the moment. We've done everything. We've done through our own sales revenues, our own relationships with customers, from a technical advancement and from a financial stability and growth. Everything's been market driven by what the market wants, and a bit of that was educational and latterly, as I say, the market has moved, so the educational piece is less of a problem. We don't have to explain all the time. What do we mean by no code? We still do. It's still confusing, but less so 20 years ago it was like there's no such thing.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to ask you now what is no code?

Speaker 2:

So no code. I often liken this a little bit like the NHS. So the NHS provides healthcare to all the citizens of the UK, free at the point of use. Clearly the NHS costs billions, so it's not truly free, but when we take advantage of it we don't have to pay anything.

Speaker 2:

With no code, our software platform has millions of lines of code. We have a development team and we're developing and advancing that platform all the time. But when our customers or sometimes us on behalf of our customers develop new systems, at that point we don't have to write a single line of code, line of code. It's totally configurable within a platform where you're selecting options, dragging and dropping things and building systems that can be scaling from. I think our smallest customer is about three people and our largest customer is truly global, operating in virtually every country in the world with hundreds of thousands of users. So complexity of business processes and systems and scale of organization right across the board there's no similarity between those two example organizations at all, but use the same piece of software to answer their business challenges.

Speaker 1:

Interesting and I guess this is quite well-timed in the market room. So my listeners will be predominantly engineering and manufacturing. We are, you know people are doing something about it, thinking about it, starting it. Anything to do with ai tech data, you know, now the industry is starting to sort of embrace it, but there's sort of lack of, obviously, education awareness behind it. Have you, have you seen an uptake in clients from the manufacturing engine world, would you say? And so where are people on that journey?

Speaker 2:

Yes, a little. We are more focused on back office processes than real world like IoT, internet of Things type processes. We do do some work with customers where they have hardware, be it shop floor manufacturing or whatever that's generating data. So in the IoT world they've got masses and masses of data, but quite often that data is far too granular and doesn't filter its way up to, let's call it, decision maker level. So you might have millions and millions of lines of data churning out of shop floor machinery so you can tell how that machine is, quality and consumption and throughput and patterns that people at a higher level can make decisions on. That might make more efficient operation and very often there's a lot of data out there that they can't utilize. So we do have customers that get us involved to suck that data in and transform it and use it in ways in higher level business processes.

Speaker 2:

But generally speaking we're not a piece of software. We do sometimes I'm going to say generally speaking there's a few examples but generally speaking we're not a piece of software that's controlling machines, for example. For example, we have one customer who they are themselves driving a new paradigm which is quite topical at the moment for the delivery of prescription drugs and they are centralizing that in a central processing environment rather than pharmacies out in the world. They're delivering bulk deliveries in a very efficient pattern and we drive a robot to pick, pack and dispense drugs at massive speed. And when I say a robot, it's a vending machine, the size of the building I'm sitting in, it's huge, and it basically flips these drugs out faster than you can sort of spot with the naked eye. And we pump that information to it in patterns. That means it gets pick, patterned, boxed in very efficient ways. So we do drive machines sometimes.

Speaker 1:

It's not the most common use of our use case and would you say or suggest as any key bits of data that you know, let's say, an engineering or manufacturing firm or that pharmaceutical firm in question, should be looking at? Because I think right now cost is an issue, all these type of things, but the UK should be able to compete on its processes and its quality aspects of it. So would you argue there are certain bits of data that people should be looking at now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think so I think I might argue first, as a step back from that, that I think the UK and I'm not an expert, I'll just qualify, but I get the impression from the customers we deal with that the UK manufacturing industry is behind other countries in the world. So if you look at Japan, germany and America and other places, we are like lagging behind, catching up. So the first thing is do you even have data? Because you might be doing things in such an old-fashioned way that it's very difficult to get the data to place your decisions upon. But assuming you have have cost is clearly one everybody's looking to drive down cost. So, just in time, delivery of stock, identifying stock that's held too long, where the shelf life's not important, but you're keeping stock of things that you don't need to stop because your supplier can supply it instantly anyway. So cost can come in cost of materials, but cost of stock and how you're replenishing it and those sorts of things.

Speaker 2:

Quality can be a big issue If you have lots of quality issues. We've got one customer I won't name who they are and it's not that sensitive Four or five years ago they had, ranging across their whole operation, an average of about 700 quality issues per month. All of those quality issues were investigated by 2022 and, using our software, they'd reduce that down to an average of 45 quality issues a month and by last year 2025, I'm not as up to date but by last year they'd got that down to averaging less than one quality issue a month. Now that has to have a big impact on cost yeah, biggest impact on quality of service you're delivering to your customer, et cetera. So, whether it's cost, quality or flexibility, um, you might be able to run your shift patterns differently, or you might be able to produce as much with less people, and so on and so forth.

Speaker 2:

Um, data underpins and I make a distinction by way between data and information. So, when I mentioned earlier Internet of Things, masses and masses of data churning out, but it's data. At that point, unless you can present that data in a way that's meaningful to the people that need to consume it, that's when it becomes information on which they can base decisions. Showing somebody here's a million rows of data. No manager, nobody anywhere, is going to take a decision on millions of rows of data. So, first, be able to capture data. Second, convert data into information that's actionable. Surface that to the right decision makers and empower them to make a difference apologies for interrupting this episode with a very quick announcement about my business.

Speaker 1:

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, tied in quite nicely back to easy to get in touch with me or the team. I hope you enjoy the rest of the episode.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, excellent, tied in quite nicely back to empowerment. That didn't it?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no he did, 100% he does, and I guess it's empowering, it's also arming people with the right information and data to make fully informed decisions, which I imagine that that essentially is a big sell, because, if not, you make them blind, essentially, aren't you?

Speaker 1:

yeah, you're guessing otherwise exactly that and I guess the challenge is, you know, manufacturing quite an archaic type of industry. To some extent you will find certain businesses that have always done it this way and the that's why we do things. I imagine that is a barrier you you come up against when you're trying to educate people on and how the benefits are.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we've got a manufacturing company that have existed for at least 50 or 60 years. It's an old style engineering environment. Your audience will understand what I mean, with cranes and presses and all sorts of things going on. They are very much in the mindset. We've always done it this way and they have implemented our system and they are making changes and they are making improvements and that for them, I think at a senior level, is quite a painful process only because it's new and it's different and it's you and it's not what we've always done. But they're already seeing benefits.

Speaker 2:

And if you could wind forward and sadly we can't just wind that clock forward if you could wind forward four or five years and then reflect back and say, look what you're doing today, but look how you used to do this four years ago, there'll be a different company in four or five years' time. Yeah, and that happens not by revolution but by incremental change. So I sometimes say to people in industry you know, strategic, significant change is usually not delivered by one person or team coming up with a strategy and saying, right from that date, that's what we're doing. They might have that strategy and that aspiration and vision, but they'll get there with many small incremental changes, and that's what delivers your strategy yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1:

With that in mind, then what, what mistakes think people make when they, when they start out this journey? Because it is a journey where people have to start from somewhere, because actually it's a different way of working for companies who have done it for 50 years. So where do you start?

Speaker 2:

Yeah well, we have a tagline on our marketing material which is something like I'm not even going to get this right. Oh, it's probably the owner.

Speaker 1:

No, it's not on that banner.

Speaker 2:

We have a guy looking at a mountain. It's like a hiker looking at a mountain and the tagline says something like you don't have to climb the whole mountain, just take the first step. And I say to people all the time you will not get it right. Even the companies who are the most prepared, best organized, who think they've specified everything to the nth degree, when they go through that journey they recognize other benefits and other things they can do that they never first saw in their plan. So the fact that you won't get it right or perfect shouldn't be a barrier. Just start the journey, because this is an incremental thing that you're doing. You don't have to create revolution overnight. Start today, increment tomorrow, increment next week, improve the week after and, as you say, four or five years down the look, you'll look back and you've actually created a revolution, but you didn't even notice it.

Speaker 2:

Too many people think they've got to see the whole picture and have a very clear route of how they get from A to B, and actually you don't have to have that at all and that can be a liberating thing. Some people think they have to have that or they'll fail. Well, if you, I'll do a, a pun here. If you're implementing a piece of software that's flexible enough and that's probably our biggest advantage in the industry you can flex and adapt and change and, you know, implement constant improvement etc.

Speaker 2:

Within your business without having to throw the baby out with the bathwater, without having to say, oh, we bought a piece of software that didn't work, let's buy a different piece. Yeah, one of the things about a no code platform out of the box it's not designed to do a specific thing, it can do anything you want. So if your plan is a and a becomes a plus and actually over time it actually becomes B and you end up on a different trajectory, which four or five years in COVID lots of businesses did. There was pivots taking place. If your software is flexible enough, it should be able to adapt and grow and flex with the business as you need it to, so you don't need to see the whole picture, just make those improvements.

Speaker 1:

Which I actually think is perfectly timed because we are seeing genuinely more than ever companies pivot be agile in in understanding that the product they do can actually transfer. It can go across a number of different industries. You know automotive is probably a good example right now. Where it's it's. It's hit a few hard times, you know as well. But you know right now it's going to be a bit of a slow period and manufacturers have had to be agile and go bloody. All right. Okay, who else can we sell our product to? With a bit of tweaking, and I've seen some amazing things in the market where companies are going. Actually, I've got some fantastic contracts here in in defense or aerospace and all these, all these areas which are moving forward. So I imagine that type of technology helps them to do that, but also it's almost an added pitch to the client. They have the technology to do that as well absolutely, absolutely, once.

Speaker 2:

Once they realize so, quite often doesn't matter whether you're in a larger corporates tend to get it quicker. Smes tend to have understandably, I might add a lesser understanding of technology around them. They don't have the time and the resources to evaluate everything. So some SMEs they'll start the questions by can you do X and can you do Y, and does it do this and does it do that? And we've seen this other product and it does X Y Z. Do you do X Y Z? And what they find over time not very long is we can make it do anything you want. What do you want it to do? So they start to focus their time, effort and gray matter on the business and how to improve the business, rather than what product should we select that most closely matches what we want to do? Yeah, and that is also a liberating experience.

Speaker 2:

We had one customer come to us recently and they wanted to buy a CRM system. And we can do CRM systems like every other sort of software vendor out there, and we had a meeting and they discussed their requirements, which were a bit off the wall. Yes, yes, yes, we can do all these things. And they said if you can do all these things. Can you do this other thing left field, right fieldy points. And we said, yeah, yeah, we could do that. They said, oh, park the crm project. We want to do this other thing first, because that costs us a fortune in labor, very labor intensive, very resource hungry, and we have to do that hundreds of times. If you can solve that and automate that, for us that's an absolute godsend.

Speaker 2:

We did that. Then they went on a CRM and service desk and a few other things which were more conventional business requirements. So they came to talk to us about one thing Once they'd sort of gone through do you do X, y, Z? Yes, we do, and we do it like this and we do it like that through. Do you do xyz? Yes, we do, and we do it like this and we do it like that. And how about this? So if you can do all that, can we do this? And that opened their mind to the possibility and they automated a part of their business that they weren't even considering it's.

Speaker 1:

It's fascinating actually. And one thing I want to pick there as well as you mentioned that in terms of potential possibility that technology will reduce a a certain headcount in a certain area of the business, because essentially you know that they like anything, there's a give and take and and there will be people who, uh, his jobs will be at risk because of technology. We just have to say that and because it is where it is and that's for me, that's just a part of the evolution of the industry. I think there's probably a type of stuff where I've got, and for me that's just a part of the evolution of the industry. I think there's probably a difference in cyber stuff.

Speaker 2:

I've got a comment for you on that front.

Speaker 1:

Go on, no, go on, as you were. I want to hear your thoughts. What are your thoughts on that, because there's obviously some debate around the whole thing.

Speaker 2:

Well, my thoughts on that are quite simple. I haven't seen that many through my entire life. I have not seen that many businesses implement technological advantage and then radically change their workforce. Tweaking and changing I've seen, but radical changes I haven't seen. And I think it's the other way around.

Speaker 2:

If you work for an organization that I'll pick that engineering example you've done it like this for the last 50 years and we're going to carry on doing it like this. If you work in an organisation like that, I'd be more worried because the ones that are implementing technological advancement, they're thinking about securing their future, competing with the others in the same industry. The industry is moving on and they are moving on with it and competing. So, actually working in those environments where somebody is implementing new technology to give them an edge or make them more efficient or do whatever, I'd look at that and think that's actually making us more secure, not less secure Might be political to say, but where I see technological change come along, whether it's hardware, software or anything else, and there's tweaking of the workforce, it might be that it's an opportunity to look at Deadwood, to look at streamlining. So it's not actually this piece of technology got rid of five people. Actually, those five people could easily have been redeployed into higher value, better quality work for the organisation. If they weren't, it's probably something else.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I actually got my head around it.

Speaker 2:

uh, it could be that they're reaching retirement age. I don't even mean anything negative. It could be that they're reaching retirement age or, you know, they were already on a plan to exit. Anyway, I'm really saying I think employees can be redeployed in the much higher value roles and if they're not being, then it's probably some other reason. Yeah, I do realize. In automotive, for example, the likes of nissan robotizing everything, yeah, there will have been. If you went back 100 years, there'll have been hundreds of skilled workers there.

Speaker 1:

But if they didn't do that.

Speaker 2:

Someone else is going to do it and those workers at Nissan wouldn't have those jobs today because it wouldn't exist absolutely it's.

Speaker 1:

It's a romantic thought to think we can keep doing how we're doing things and and keep people in jobs for life and and the exact same job of doing. But it's just, it's how the world evolves and, unfortunately, exactly what you just said there, if we don't evolve with it and make changes, those people will be out of a job because those businesses won't won't be there and unfortunately, as we said before, there are companies like china getting pumped money from their government to to try and beat us on price and and to try and compete with us on quality. So I completely agree if these changes aren't made, then, um, it will be the this a much worse result. But actually, exactly just said there, it's just change rather than replacement.

Speaker 1:

The skills will just change absolutely I do think that the traditional or average manufacturer that was 150 strong I think, will be 75 80 strong, but I actually don't think that's necessarily all down to automation. I think we'll be 75, 80 strong, but I actually don't think that's necessarily all down to automation. I think we've seen that in the last 18 months where companies have suddenly gone wow, our costs are about to go out of control. Where can we cut costs? And probably realized they were a little bit bloated and they can actually be as efficient, if not more efficient, with a smaller squad. I think we've seen that over the last six or 12 months. So that's all down to automation. I think that's just the businesses getting more efficient and and leaner and meaner and businesses go through cycles.

Speaker 1:

Of course they do exactly that. But it's interesting. Actually I was I'm halfway through the elon must book and the audio book when driving in and he was. He was saying today that they went, they had a process where they'd automated everything in the factory. You know, it was like it must be automated and then they realized there's certain tasks that they are. Robots are slower than humans. However good their camera, the camera is, it is quicker for a human to go and pick a, pick a tool up, understand what it is and then go and fix something not all, but some areas and then he, you know, he just got rid of all those robots in that area because that's what he does. But I just think for me it hit home that we aren't getting. You're not going to walk in a factory in 10 years' time and you're not going to see a person. You're going to see people working with robotics, data and it just be a different type of skill set, which I guess what your business essentially is all around essentially.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, what your business essentially is is all around, essentially, yeah, yeah, I mean in the industry. I've worked in my entire life when I was a young man in the industry. The paperless office now the paperless office just about is here now. Yeah, I would suggest not all offices, but I would think most offices now are just about paperless offices. But that didn't happen overnight. That took the best part of 30 to 40 years.

Speaker 2:

So change becomes available quickly. It doesn't mean that change itself happens quickly, because the pace of uptake and there's risks in change as well pace of uptake and there's risks in change as well. So the pace of uptake and the risk-reward balance that's always a consideration in business means that you change at a pace that suits your business and that's not every business overnight and we have the same challenges. It might seem like if you work in the world of tech, you're immune to it all, but you just talk about AI and we have those same challenges and we could close our eyes and say no, no, it's a bad thing, we're not going to engage in it, or we can say it's the next technological advancement.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, 100%. And if you look at, if someone said now what the biggest challenges in most industries? But what's the biggest challenge in manufacturing engineering? One of the top things people would say is the skills gap. In fact, I would dare say nine times out of ten they would say not enough people coming for industry. I would argue that the this digital transformation plays into the hands of that perfectly, because there should be a role which would appeal much more to whatever generation we're on now Z, x, whatever it is than a traditional what would have been an engineer sort of 10, 15 years ago, because people are growing up. My lad's six and he's unfortunately on iPad as soon as he wakes up, but he's used to using technology which they will need to utilize, won't they?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I wouldn't like to make a prediction about AI, but the way the industry looks like it's going in the next few years, I would say if your role depends solely or largely on what you know, your knowledge, your role is at risk. But what that means is practical occupations, so people who can wield tools and lay bricks and put pipes in anything that's a physical, real world role. They become more valuable. Yeah, so when you talk about your industrial revolution 3.0, 4.0, automation and all the rest, that cycle works its way around and actually the physical, practical jobs where you're applying your skills in a physical world, I think will become far more valuable. And knowledge-based workers, white-collar workers, higher premium, higher salaried, et cetera you will still have them, they're not going to disappear, but a lot of that will get taken over by AI Because the knowledge is there already.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, embrace it, don't shy away from it, because they say, get left behind. I completely agree. I want to pick your thoughts. Lastly, if you don't mind, on the personal brand and thought leadership piece, because I guess you are someone who clearly portrays someone with a modern way of thinking, with leadership. I think management and leadership has moved on so much over the last 20 years from this you no longer see these dictatorship-style managers as my way or the highway, because, quite simply, people don't stand for it and they're off, and we mentioned culture right at the start of it. Um, personal branding is an area of that and and I guess what we're doing now is the area of a personal branding, that, that side to it why do you think that matters? People like yourself or the leaders having that name, reputation, brand in the market, because I think there's a lot of that will challenge a lot of people who perhaps don't do anything like that.

Speaker 2:

I think I'll sum it up in one word. For me that comes down to what I would call alignment. So it's trust. It's when you're doing business with an organization and we've got companies we do business with where we've never even met them. And we've got companies we do business with where we've never even met them. We've got a customer in Australia and we've never even met them physically. So it's trust. It's making sure that values are aligned.

Speaker 2:

In the modern world, values are really important. It's making sure that strategies can be leveraged. So if we have a strategy with our software that goes in one direction and our customer can see the direction we're going in. So we do two events a year to keep our customers informed and aligned with what we do and they inform us as well. It's a two-way street, In fact. We call that the knowledge transfer forum. It's not that we're informing you, it's a transfer ofway street. In fact, we call that the knowledge transfer forum. It's not that we're informing you, it's a transfer of knowledge backwards and forwards. So aligning your values, trust in the organization and the people of the organization. So when you say something will happen, it will happen.

Speaker 2:

Strategic understanding, and that all comes from the top of an organization. So if you put merit into the corporate brand of the company and the leadership of the organization, then you should address both separately. It might be that in some industries that personal side of it is less important If you're in a highly regulated industry I'm going to say what the financial industry, for example and it might be that the corporate brand and meeting financial regulations, etc. Etc. Etc, and a lot of other things there are far more important than knowing who is the person that drives this business forward. Um, so I don't think it's suitable for absolutely all, but I think especially for smaller businesses that have a voice, that are trying to get themselves known and expand that um, um, that thinking and that uh paradigm that they're bringing to the market, I would definitely recommend the leader of that organization has their own persona out in the world as well as the organization itself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, nice. And just finally, what's on the agenda for next sort of 12 to 18 months at ExcelPoint? Lots of exciting change, I imagine. Agenda for next sort of 12 to 18 months.

Speaker 2:

Excel point lots, of, lots of exciting change, I imagine. Yeah, yeah, um, we are, from technical point of view, we're migrating a technology stack at the moment. That might not mean your audience, um, it's a big effort but what that does mean it means all of our customer systems can migrate over technology waves without having to go away and redevelop them. So we're doing that, we're embedding ai and we're doing that in a number of different ways with a lot of sort of power, configurability and caution around how that will work for customers with ai. Um, the last 18 months have been quite flat, but since about October last year we've seen that growing again. So we're growing again and we're looking at our financial performance for the next 14, 15 months. Already we're looking really good. So I'm pleased that flat period is behind us and yeah, we'll grow again.

Speaker 1:

I think is the key phrase Excellent, both technically and as a business, and this will have been a good education piece for a lot of people. If they're new to it and learned it and they want to understand a bit more about no-code platform software and they want to reach out to you. What's the best way in, what's the best way to contact you?

Speaker 2:

well, they can go on our website and fill a contact form in, but they feel free to contact me directly. If you want me to mention my email address, I'm happy to do that. I'm on linkedin etc. Yeah, my email address, if anybody is interested, is ianbrown very conventional spellings of ian and brown at excel point e-x-c-e-l-p-o-i-n-t dot, co dot.

Speaker 1:

Uk excellent and look, I really enjoyed it because, as I said right to start, this was always going to be something that I was going to learn from as well, and I really have.

Speaker 1:

But I really love talking about the future of manufacturing and I think you've spoken about that so well and it's it's exciting rather than challenging. I think there's almost a bunk to miss. So we'd save a lot of people, because I still think there's almost debunked some myths I would say a lot of people because I still think there's some scaremongering of fear behind this ai and data world and and. But I think what you've communicated there is you don't have to throw the baby out of bathwater. You don't have to go. Let's get everything. You can start small. You can understand the right bits of data to analyze first, and then you can start to build a different culture in the business where you are empowering people with the right data and information, and I think that was the biggest takeaway for me, which is excellent, and I'm sure that will be a big takeaway for the people. So thank you, ian, I've enjoyed it.

Speaker 2:

I've got a closing comment for you that you can put out if you want.

Speaker 1:

No, no, go for it.

Speaker 2:

I was asked a while ago at an auditorium being held up as a successful businessman and I think most successful businessmen don't quite see it like that, for the reasons I said earlier and I said to the audience um yeah, I think running a business is fantastic. You're free to do what you want, when you want, liberating, etc. As long as you've got more people. So if you don't have any customers, employees or suppliers, it's great, yeah. But to to turn that around the other way, if you're an employee in the manufacturing industry it's the old um churchill quote to some degree just coming to me it's you know, don't ask what the company's doing for you.

Speaker 2:

How can you improve the company? How can, when you come into work every day of the week, show to your line managers that you've got that innovative approach, you've got that attitude and aptitude to help take the company forward? You go to work to make money for your family. The company has to make a return on what you do. So if you can think that through how do I improve that Then you'll be not only strengthening the company but strengthening your own position and your own career progression as well. Yeah, I completely agree. Thank you so much for listening or watching this episode of the Manufacturing Leaders podcast.

Speaker 1:

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 would absolutely love to talk a bit more detail. Thank you very much. Speak soon.