People in Production Podcast with Ryan Nelson

Episode 4: Building Lasting Partnerships in Manufacturing with Brandon Herring

• Circle of 5 • Season 1 • Episode 4

Share episode

The episode explores the vital relationship between sales and production within the manufacturing industry through the insights of Brandon Herring from Zephyr Products. Key discussions include the importance of collaboration, knowing when to say no, and cultivating a culture of communication and continuous improvement.

• The intersection of sales and production in manufacturing 
• Importance of knowing production capacities when advocating for customers 
• Strategic decision-making on which projects to pursue 
• Discussion of the first article process for quality assurance 
• Emphasis on documenting knowledge transfer within teams 
• Need for clear communication and regular meetings 
• The role of team morale and celebrating successes in fostering culture 

Reach out to us if you’re interested in being part of the Circle of Five coaching community!

Speaker 1:

All right manufacturing leaders, it is time for episode four of the People in Production podcast. I am really enjoying this. I'm really loving the feedback that we're getting Today. Our guest is Brandon Herring from Zephyr Products Incorporated. Brandon is a friend. I've gotten to know him over the past year and have really come to appreciate him. How he shows up and the energy that he brings to whatever room that he's in Love it.

Speaker 1:

In this episode you're going to hear from Brandon as he talks about the relationship between sales and production. He's going to talk about culture through the shop into sales and how that culture from the shop flows into how he communicates to other people. He's going to talk about when to say no. I find that to be an interesting piece. And then he shares a little insight as to how Zephyr tackles their first article process. Good stuff there. And then he shares a number of other things, like moving forward after failing with your group, how do you not cast blame, how do you avoid getting rooted in the frustration of past projects. So a lot of other things that Brandon's going to share.

Speaker 1:

This is one of two episodes from Brandon and part two will be coming in our next release. But check this out with Brandon and if you would be sure to subscribe to this podcast, in whatever avenue you're watching it, whether it's on YouTube or Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Apple Play, whatever environment you're checking it out, please subscribe, keep up to date with what we're going. And then I'd also love for you to offer some encouragement and some gratitude to Brandon for sharing his insights. So check out part one of my interview with Brandon Herring. All right, hey, everyone, welcome to the show. I am really excited for having Brandon Herring with me. He is from Zephyr Products and Brandon. Welcome to the show, man, how are you?

Speaker 2:

Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, man, I am looking forward to this full disclosure. I want to let people know that Zephyr is a client that I work with and I actually helped to run a program that you helped create at Zephyr, if I understand right. So you had a vision for, hey, how do we onboard these guys that are coming into our company, and you started creating some things around that. We're going to dive into that a little bit, but before we go there, tell me what is Zephyr products and what type of services do you guys provide?

Speaker 2:

So we are a metal contract manufacturer, so job shop uh, we don't. We don't have our own product. We make parts for other people and a litany of different uh markets. Well, whether it's construction, uh to transportation, aviation uh, aviation transportation, rail car, uh, we work in a lot of different markets where we make parts for these customers and then they assemble their parts and then ship them to wherever they need to go.

Speaker 1:

And you do laser, you do cutting, you do welding, you do fabricating, you do machining, you kind of work. A wide swath of services, don't you?

Speaker 2:

Correct. So we primarily process carbon steel, stainless steel and aluminum. Whether that starts out as a sheet of metal or some sort of structural material, whether it's round tube, square tube, round bar, square bar angle, we process that material. So we'll cut it on a laser or a tube laser. We will form that part. If it needs to be bent, Then we take it. If it needs some machining, when you have some machining capabilities, uh, then also we. We have a lot, many different types of welding that we do here. And then, finally, we do powder coating. So if we want to do a certain type of powder coat paint, we do that as well that's awesome.

Speaker 1:

So what's your ideal client? Who who's a good connection for suffer products?

Speaker 2:

well. So we obviously, like many people in our field, prefer a repeatable work. Though we are a job shop, there is a learning curve, you know. So if it's something that's going to be repeatable, so that we can get our first articles out of the way, so that we can perfect the part, so that we can continually make it repeated with quality and do and be able to find efficiencies from building that part repeatedly, so that we can make timelines for those customers to have build. They have, you know, build schedules that we can meet, but those customers can range from any, really, like I said, a litany of different markets that we cater to awesome.

Speaker 1:

So tell me about your role with Zephyr. What do you do?

Speaker 2:

I'm currently in an outside sales role, so really I maintain relationships, develop new relationships. That's what I love about my job, because I can talk all day long.

Speaker 2:

But no, there's a lot of things to Zephyr that are for us, that the audience may or may not know, that we do more than just making parts here. So my job is to maintain the existing relationships that we have developed, a mind share within those relationships, so that we can, you know, do more work. We try to. We focus on creating partnerships with our customers. We don't have. We're not constantly going out and trying to find new customers. We're strengthening, strengthening the relationships we have with our existing customers so that we can expand that mind share within those customers that's great.

Speaker 1:

How long have you been with the company?

Speaker 2:

uh almost eight years okay.

Speaker 1:

So what's kind of interesting to me? And, um, as I shared, I've worked with Zephyr. I know a lot, I like to talk a lot about culture and that's a fascinating conversation. And you're not necessarily a guy that goes out and you're on the floor working the shop, working with the materials themselves and the guys operating that. Yet in sales, culture is still a dynamic for you. Yet in sales, culture is still a dynamic for you how you interact with other companies, how you interact with your team if something needs to be done a certain way or if there's a change order or something like that. Tell me a little bit about how you experience the Zephyr culture and how you, as a salesperson, become an extension of whatever culture Zephyr says it has. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2:

I think so. Um, well, I I basically advocate for our customer right to our, to our shop and and and in most companies, you know, you have this um, a little bit of opposition between production and sales, right? Uh, production that doesn't like change. Uh, there's always a finite number of resources that you can do, and sales is always trying to push that bar right, we're trying, we could do more, we can do more, we can do more, but in the same case, we're also representing the customers expectations within the organization.

Speaker 2:

So you know I know what my by my customer expects based our customer state expects, based on my interactions with them, I've seen the parts that they're end result. So I understand the level that we need to be, and so a lot of times that'll be my job is to articulate that to our production team. So not only just expectations for timeframe delivery and those types of things, but also the level of detail that needs to be coordinated or based on the volume. You know how do we need to approach this project, and so I do work with our project team in a lot of facets, especially when we're onboarding new customers or a new product line for a customer. That's like new parts for us, where I work with not only our strategic product folks but also our first article folks to make sure that those expectations are delivered.

Speaker 2:

Hopefully I answered your question, yes. So what's interesting to me is there are two value points that those expectations are delivered.

Speaker 1:

Hopefully I answered your question, yes. So what's interesting to me is there are two value points that you need to connect. You need to understand who Zephyr is, but you also need to understand who your client is. How do you get an understanding of, hey, this person that I'm talking to? What do I pick up about, who they are, what their organization is, and how does that affect how you interact with your own company in that regard?

Speaker 2:

That's a great question. So I think a lot of times you know you can have any type of salesperson, I guess. But in this and what I've learned in this line of work is you have to have an intimate, like what I would say, at least a high level intimate understanding of your capabilities. So I started at Zephyr in estimating, which requires you to know, you have to know, a little bit about every work center so that you can properly estimate it, so that you can put a price to it Right. So how much time and what the operation, how that, how that works in our work, so that you can understand whether we can whether it's in our wheelhouse or not, right?

Speaker 2:

So that's the first part of the conversation with the customer that says hey, I have this problem, Can you help me solve it? Well, they show me a part. I'm looking at it. Well, do we have the capabilities to make this part? Is it a good fit for us?

Speaker 2:

Because it's maybe a little bit outside of our comfort zone but it's still in the realm of our possibility, right? So it's knowing that, that capability, so that I can say you know, mr Customer, mrs Customer, yes, we could probably help you with this part. Or whoa, you know, that's something that we don't typically do. There's so many different variations of metal fabrication that really having an understanding of what those capabilities are that you can do or what your partners can do, so I think you know, I know we'll probably get into this, but like that's the value of being in like a group, like NTMA, is that having this understanding of all these potential partners that we have in this group that have this extension if for lack of a better term of your capabilities, right? So, and so that that bridging that gap for what's good work for us and what's probably not a good fit for us is the first part of the conversation when talking to customers.

Speaker 1:

That's great. So what? What's the parameters? That would be a no for you. Is it volume of work? Is it type of material? Help me understand a little bit. Or, and when is it an opportunity for you to say you go to your shop manager and just say, hey, we've got this opportunity. Are we willing to expand to this? How do you know what to say no to and what to say yes to?

Speaker 2:

well, so kind of a combination of all the above right? So, first of all, if it's some sort of material, uh, that is outside of carbon steel, stainless steel or some variation of aluminum, um, I'm going to be, that's going to throw my first flag right, like if it's some kind of, uh, vibranium or something that we don't, that you know is very scarce and an unknown demand or something, or I don't even know, the first place, based on what my suppliers and the awareness I have of their product line, is even something I can get. The other thing is, is that what type of operations would go into making this part? Ok, so we've identified that the material is something that we are familiar with and we do have access to. What operations need to go into making this part, and so having that understanding of the capabilities that our shop has or our partners have, it goes into whether or not that part is a good fit for us.

Speaker 2:

The other thing is is the volume right? Right? So if it's a really complicated part and we might make it a couple of times a year, you know, is the learning curve, you know as far as the opportunity is going to cost me more to learn how to make this part, or is it going to? Or is it something that you know it's just better left to a shop that specializes in making one offs? You know that might be outside of what we do, based on on who we are as a company. We do a lot of on-the-job training here, so where some companies you might pay a lot more but you're also paying for a skill level that's already there, where we have lots of high-level skills here but we're also doing a lot of odd-to-job training. So having that understanding and where that balance is plays a lot into those conversations.

Speaker 1:

You know, that's an interesting thing. I was actually on the shop floor at your place earlier this week in fact, and I was talking with one of your guys who had been doing a great big, massive project heavy, heavy material, large project that they were working on and I just said it'll be interesting. Did you say you've got another one of these coming out? And they said yeah. And I said after having done the first one, how long do you think it'll take to do the second one? And he said, oh, we're going to cut the time by a dramatic amount because we've done it before. And just in that conversation with him I said so how are you documenting this so that the tribal knowledge isn't just in the team that did this one? But if some of you move out the other day, how do we get some other people that can pick up where you left off? And what was interesting he just said to me. He said to me right at that moment that's awesome.

Speaker 1:

You said that because one of the guys was working on a project I've done many times before in second shift and he hadn't worked on this project much before. So I went over and talked him through it and I just started writing everything down I could think of to help him to be able to do the job as well as I could do the job. And the next morning he came in and he said the job was just about perfect. And I guess I'm just going into that story to say when you talk about doing something, if you're only doing it once or twice a year, there's a lot of learning curve for some of these projects that are complicated and you write it down, you document it. That affects your culture and the confidence taking something in. But a company really has to understand that that first one is going to take a lot longer than the ones that follow. How much does that play a factor when you're contemplating a project like that?

Speaker 2:

it's a great question. We uh. So we have our first, what we call first article process, which most, a lot of companies, most companies, if they aren't doing should be doing uh, where we we do a couple of different things. First is is it something that's the first time that we'll be doing a lot of uh? That will have a learning curve. The second is is risk right? So this company though this is, it seems very simple on the surface. They're asking for 10,000 pieces. Should we really run a first batch just to make sure everything's good before we run all these parts and we put ourselves at risk that, if they're wrong, we're, you know, out all this material and lost time, right?

Speaker 2:

So so we have a first article process that not only does just that like, it's basically a quality assurance through each each work center, but also develops process like processes within specific to that part, to help us to gain efficiencies of however much risk and however much money we might do. A first article run that's like more than one piece, so it's like five pieces or something so that we can learn how, not only how to make the part correctly, but also we learn efficiencies in making those five parts, and obviously by the fifth part is probably the best version of the part. But we also have developed how we're gonna do this part, whether it's from fixturing for weldments to understanding the you know, the size of material that we want to bring in, how we're ordering that material and then for the runs that we know we're going to do in production. So we, so we, and that's constantly. That's not necessarily a destination but a way of business, right?

Speaker 2:

So our first article process is a living process. It's constantly evolving, but we do take that process very seriously and actually have some resources dedicated to that, and so I work with that team for a pretty pretty lockstep, because a lot of stuff that I'm doing is either new or it's a new customer or it's a new customer, right. So we want to make sure that we're giving a great first impression, and then that continuity strategy to make sure that we're delivering quality products on time.

Speaker 1:

So who's at the table for that conversation? Is it engineering, is it fab, is it weld? Who do you bring to that table so that it's a real conversation and not just a? Well, we could do it this way. We'll have to talk to that department.

Speaker 2:

So we have first article meetings at least once, if not more than once, a week, to go over all the, all the parts that we deem first articles. And those are all the leaders, so the managers of each department, and then any line level supervisors that would be directly involved. Usually that's like the well, supervisors that would be directly involved so that we can do so. So do we determine like things like well, ok, what type of fixture do we need for this? You know what, and how are we going to approach this? And even all the way down to some, in some cases, the packaging.

Speaker 2:

Ok, this thing's painted now and we got a bunch of them and it's really big. How are we going to get this to the customer? You know so, though, we might have estimated all these things into the end of the offering to the customer as far as a dollar sign, but we have to really have to drill down into the actual execution of it. So usually it's our leaders, so our department leadership, our first article direct project manager, and usually, like myself, our strategic product group, like myself, our strategic product group which is usually the quoting team that was involved in the conversations to deliver the expectation to our team from the customer.

Speaker 1:

Man, communication is so complex there and what I think is interesting and every organization deals with this something may not have gone well from the handoff from this group to this group and then later that day you're sitting in a meeting with those same people, having to come up with solutions for the next project and stuff, and just having that ability to be frank with each other, to speak candidly with each other, and I just think that says something about the importance of your culture. How do we move forward without living in the past, saying oh, you jacked that up in the past.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, or like how did this happen?

Speaker 1:

What have you seen in your days in this role? What have you seen about the importance of building trust and what are some keys that you've seen about how that trust has been built?

Speaker 2:

So that's a great question too. So some things in my mind. What I've, what I've learned in my experiences, is that you have to have the right people in the right positions, Right, and then you have certain people there. I guess for lack of a better term would be glue or bridges, and I think a lot of my job requires to be a bridge. I got to bridge the departments together to to smash barriers on communication. So we have direct communication. That communication is flowing Because, you're right, like you know, once you hand the part from, you know, from the laser department over to the break department, they have to understand what they have, what information needs to be on the prints that we develop for that specific step.

Speaker 2:

You know, our traveler that we use, that they clock into, has the proper notes for the settings in the machine or whatever. What have you always needs to and everybody needs to know where that information is right. So we have a process that's pretty standard in that regard, but any kind of things that are specific to that part that needs to be articulated. We have to be able to have these conversations so that they know where to go, look for this information, that the information is going to be there so a lot of times having, especially on larger projects. We'll have these meetings so that everybody's on the same page and unfortunately, sometimes that doesn't that there's something that gets missed, but our ability to go back and look and how to improve that is intrinsic to our ability to be successful.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so communication is key, Having enough information, not just communication via email.

Speaker 2:

But you know, we all work in prints in our industry, man, so our prints need to be clean.

Speaker 2:

And for those of us, for those of you watching that, that are, you know, a shop like ourselves, you understand that your, your prints from your customer are usually like some sort of engineering print, which is great because engineers can engineer everything they want to in this model, but that's not necessarily real world. So like it requires us to say, okay, guys, this is great, but we're going to have to do it this way to actually fabricate it into real life. And so having these conversations and having the communication open with the customer too, because everything that we get that might be a 3D model from the customer has to get broken down in each component part that has to be fabricated in order to make that total assembly happen. So in doing that we have to have what I would say, for lack of a better term, is Zephyr. Speak on some of our own prints so that we know how this part needs to be traveled through the shop, so that things can happen to it, the need to happen to it to ultimately make that final part for the customer's expectation.

Speaker 1:

Love that and I guess I'd ask this question is there anything that builds trust more than wins, like when you hit a couple of projects and you just hit them out of the park? Doesn't that bring the team together to want to keep? Hey, let's take on a new article, first article, let's take on a new project. What's your experience with that?

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely so, and I try to share those as many as much as I can, because morale is a huge, huge contributor. Right? So, if you're, if you're constantly, you know, naysaying or bringing bad news or what have you, you know, and even when it is bad news, that's how you present it to the team. Right, like, in my mind, it's always got to be a fail forward, like, okay, this happened, but this is what we need to do in the future to make sure this doesn't happen. And then you need buy-in. Buy-in is huge, like, the team's got to be bought in to. Okay, this is the goal. We got this big project, this is what it means to us. Here's how we're going to approach it. And then is everybody on board. And so, well, hey, yes, we can do that, but we really need to do it like this. That's a great idea, so we're going to incorporate that.

Speaker 2:

So the buy-in from your team is almost paramount to make sure that everybody's on board, so that the expectation is met. So, even if you fail, you at least have tried something. Now, as a team, you're going to go back and say, okay, well, that didn't work. How are we going to work through this? And so, and then when we have a major win, we share that with the group, and so a lot of times what we do with our customers, I'll even have them bring a final finished product that the customer has developed down here for our guys to actually see where the parts that they built can actually, you know, they can see the whole totality of the situation, and so fortunately, we we do a lot of water parks and so they get to see these pictures of of these massive water slides and stuff that are in play, and so that's a, that's been a. Really those things absolutely build culture, they build team morale and then ultimately build more productivity. They build team morale and then ultimately, build more productivity.

Speaker 1:

All right, I told you brandon had a lot of energy, loved his insights and loved how he brings a different perspective to the conversation than some of the shop owners that we've had or some of the other leaders in the industry. So thanks to brandon for that again. Subscribe to the podcast. If you're interested in being a part of the Circle of Five coaching community, by all means reach out, let me know. Let's get you connected. Let's invest in your mid-level leaders in your organization. So glad you're a part of this. In the next episode we'll talk more with Brandon about workforce development, about their re-entry process that they do, working with their individuals in incarceration at Zephyr, and then about why would Zephyr hold a shop tour for their competitors. Check out that next episode.