59. Counting Rocks! with Angela Clark

Andrea and Griffin are joined by Angela Clark to talk all things accounting, including Angela's true passion of counting rocks.

Also: Good news on trucks idling, Remember PPE, and Welcome to some new folks!

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:09

Welcome to Loaded, the Han Ready Mix podcast with Andrea Meyer, Griffin Hahn, and producer Lex.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

How's it going?

SPEAKER_04 0:16

Hey.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

We also have Angela with us today. Angela Kay.

SPEAKER_04 0:21

Hi. How's everyone? So lucky to be here. Tons of fun. It's been a great week, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

It has. We've actually had a couple busy days so far, and that is wonderful to get back into that rhythm of working hard. And I we've talked about it before, but I always think we're we're at our best when our plates are full.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

We are at our best when we are busiest. I will say we've missed Darren and Chris Jurgens. They are a big piece of our puzzle here. And I I have missed them.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

I forgot they were gone.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

You did not. Could never. There is not a not a minute of the day where we wouldn't be better with them here.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

That's true. But everybody is doing a really good job picking up the Slack. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07

Really good feedback for people this week, especially we have some new guys. Yes. New drivers.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

New drivers. Uh, we probably should have done this. We had a chunk start last week. So we should have should have started with that. But we'll catch up and then I think we'll do this going forward. Yeah. So Kelly Hyatt, Sherelle Robinson, Jason Tucker, Nathan Galbraith, and Terry Barnes all started here last week. They're still training. So if you see them, make sure you're say hi and welcome to the team and and welcome them and yeah, help them out however you can. And then uh Drake Garland started in Geneseo and he uh has some mixer driving experience. So I think he's hitting the ground running over there. So heard heard really good things. So great.

SPEAKER_04 1:51

Welcome to those guys and thanks especially to the trainers who getting back into the swing of things, having someone in the truck with them is always a a challenge. So we really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Absolutely. The trainers are such a big deal because we have to make sure that the the lessons that all of our drivers have learned and and the processes that we have in place get transferred on to new folks the right way and so that they can they can be successful.

SPEAKER_04 2:17

So another thing to get back into the swing of things with is you dust off your old uh hard hat and your safety vest. Yeah. Uh it's easy when you come back to leave that in the trunk of your car or whatever, but we need to get those back out and back on. If you are missing something, uh Sheldon has an order in for new bigger vests. I heard we need uh some extended sizing in the safety vests. Is that where you, Lex? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Yes, but uh we haven't lost the Thanksgiving uh turkey yet or what? Okay. Uh I don't really know what to say about it.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

Find find your PPE or get it and get it back on. We need to be we need to be back on top of that.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 3:03

I also wanted to report some good news about the truck idling. I've we've we've made some progress. Oh I I don't have to yell at any.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Let's emails less emails.

SPEAKER_04 3:11

Less emails. I've been text messaging, you know, channeling through the plant managers, and they're tired of hearing from me. I've talked to some drivers directly and kind of talked through some questions. And I we've made some improvement. Let's not take our eye off the ball though. Let's not let it idle now that we are we've made some progress. But I do appreciate everybody doing that. I know it's a change in habit and unnatural thing to kind of relearn, but it's important.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yeah. I forgot to send you a photo today, but I was down in Muscatine this morning and I went out back just to check because we didn't have a load for like 45 minutes. And every single truck had their truck off. Wow. Every single driver had their truck off. Great. We had a couple of Davenport guys, we had a couple Muscatine guys. So they did a really good job.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Yeah, that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Another thing I wanted to bring up is just a reminder that everybody should know this, but we have to take some extra care with small loads. We've had a few small loads that we've gotten too wet. So I know you can't see uh a one-yard load or something in your drum. You've got to make sure you roll it back to look at it and be really careful with wash down. You know, if you've got a wash down with your hopper up, make sure the water doesn't go in the truck, then do that and make sure you don't have any uh water from washing down on the previous load in your drum. Because, you know, if you got a 10 yards going on, uh uh two or three gallons doesn't really make a difference. But if you have one yard going in, that's two or three inches of slump. So that could be what makes or breaks a load. So just let's make sure we're we're being diligent about those small loads.

SPEAKER_04 4:42

Yeah, even though they're they're small, they can add up to to big issues, especially if it ends up being rejected and now we've lost truck time and have to do it again on another yard load. So it's worth taking the time to make sure it's right the first time.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:56

Another sort of uh constructive thing I have here is we have to get back into fueling our trucks every night. We had a couple issues, close calls, whatever you want to call it. I know it's annoying when everybody gets washouts at the same time and there's six trucks in line um for fuel, but if it is going to take you more time, just send my dispatch a message, wait and get your fuel if you if you can. Also, along those same lines, if your truck is down and you're working in Davenport, this is where we have the most chaos and confusion when trucks go down. If your truck is not available for you, the very best thing you can do is call Sheldon. He has the most accurate list in his brain of what trucks are available. The second best thing you can do if you can't get a hold of Sheldon is to talk to the mechanics. They know what they're working on and what they can get out the door quickly for you. I just would caution everyone to stay out of the dispatch office in the mornings. Yeah, they don't have uh the most up-to-date truck information and they have so many other, you know, tasks. So many, so many things going on at the same time with the phones ringing and trying to get trucks, you know, deadheaded where they need to go and get orders out. Helping you find a truck is just adding to their already full plate. So getting a hold of Sheldon, getting a hold of a mechanic, that's the best way to find a truck.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 6:15

Okay, now we're ready.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Angela, you ready?

SPEAKER_04 6:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Okay. So you told us that you really wanted to come on for talk about something special. So what are you doing here?

SPEAKER_03 6:25

Yeah, I was waiting for my day to be on this podcast, honestly. Itching for it.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Itching, itching. Great.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

It's a good way to describe it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

All right. Well, okay. So joking aside, tell us a little bit about your background for anybody that's listening. I mean, that may not know you as well as we do in the front office.

SPEAKER_03 6:43

So I do accounting here at Haw on ReadyMix. I started accounting like in high school, actually, did college classes, and then I moved into the restaurant industry and bartended and was a server for years since I was 16 in that industry. And then I was a general manager at a restaurant with an accounting background, and we needed a new bookkeeper. So I started doing bookkeeping for the restaurant. Couldn't be the general manager and the bookkeeper, so stopped doing that. And the owner of the restaurant worked at a he owned a nuclear pharmacy. So I got full-time work there in their office, doing kind of like bookkeeping, organizing just office tasks and helping with reporting and Andrea's dying on the podcast again. Already boring her. Um, just reporting and stuff like that. And that helped me. And then I left there and came to Han.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

When was that? Was that uh 2022 you came here?

SPEAKER_03 7:47

2021.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

2021. How did you how did you find us through what was the Trevor Burrus?

SPEAKER_03 7:51

I went through an accounting temp agency because I wasn't going to get anywhere in the nuclear pharmacy field, and I didn't want to go anywhere in that field.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Aaron Powell You said that before. Nuclear, what does that mean? What is nuclear pharmacy?

SPEAKER_03 8:03

So they use radioactive materials for diagnostic and treatment at hospitals. Aaron Powell Wow.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

I didn't even know that existed.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

You count rocks and sand. Yes. You know, it's much easier. Let's fall out from the spills.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

So I think everybody had a taste of it a little bit when Jeff came on the podcast last year. But for someone in operations, like what does the accounting department do here?

SPEAKER_03 8:29

We organize everything you guys do in a way that we can report to banks and stuff like that. Yeah. The main thing is we organize everything to make sure we're running efficiently. We look at those reports. Griffin, Andrea, people in operations look at that, see if things are going well. We can kind of see some of the issues on our side that people might not be able to see just by looking at the numbers.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

So well, I think it's always a big deal for me. Uh I start bugging you about end-of-month financials, like the day after the month closes, right? Because it's helps us make business decisions, right? When we can see the data on our performance or where we're we're not doing great. So yeah, without that visibility that you and your team provide, you know, we'd be we'd be just making decisions in a fog of war, right? We wouldn't wouldn't have any idea what's what's actually having an impact or what's actually the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_04 9:22

So I know some of us know the right thing without a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Andrea accuses me of paralysis by analysis. But um, it's a war out here. Yeah. Excellent. Well, I think one of the things that that you bring so much to this team is you jump in with special projects across the board all the time. You talk to us a little bit about some of the stuff that you've worked on recently and uh what what's near and dear to your heart?

SPEAKER_03 9:50

Inventory is near and dear to my heart. Kind of got forced into that one, but it's turned out to be really good for Han, I think, just in general. We had some big variances in what we thought we had on hand, and we were doing adjustments, which could be a huge loss for the company at year end. And so we tried to narrow down like what is going on, why are we seeing these variances? We would use drones at certain plants, but only a couple of times a year. So accurate reporting, looking at what's going in the batch panel, are we doing that properly? Because we want to know what we have and where, especially on the operation side. Like, do we need to hurry and get product somewhere? So when we started, Andrea and I were messing around one day and found an app about inventory and droning has changed, keeping the stuff on hand. I think our plant managers are just a huge key to the whole thing. Not only, I mean, I feel like I can't take much credit because they're reporting better, they're asking questions, they're con like we looked at it, we're asking them questions. So they're coming to us now with their issues and finding solutions. It just really helps the company in general. So I think inventory, it's really improved with our technology upgrades as well. Before we switched over to Rouse, we were kind of we did a lot of workarounds with technology. Yeah. What we had subscriptions to was the bare minimum. We have so much more technology at our hands that we never knew how to use or anything. So I think that is the other hand of it is learning those technologies. Like we're paying for them, not a wasteful person. Like, why are we wasting paying for something when it could be used everywhere in the company if we know how to use it?

SPEAKER_04 11:31

I want to recap that just for anyone who actually hates using Teams. Angela is really the primary instigator of us having Teams. I am. I just want to make sure everyone caught that. That it was her basically her idea and her influence that pushed us all onto it. So all of those notifications you get, you could be like, thank you, Angela.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Which, you know, I have to say, I was one of the most important things. Resistors hated it. Uh but since we got to Microsoft 365, all the things I hated about it all of a sudden just cleaned itself up and they were gone. And now I think it's a wonderful tool. I'm no longer a resistor. I'm all in on Teams. So that's been a that has been a good move. Well, you and Lex are are also the leaders in kind of learning about Power BI and Power Automate and things that I frankly I don't understand. But you you guys have done some really cool stuff with that to make processes and workflows a lot smoother for everybody and and just kind of work automatically. What can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_03 12:34

I think it is getting rid of paper and turning it into a process that we can easily use that information. There's a lot of manual stuff in this industry and just the forms, what we're doing, uh Lex with his power apps, these are things that are available to everybody. So it's all digital. If it was on a piece of paper sitting here at the office, someone at Edwards has to call, we have to look for it. It's all available for everybody whenever they want to see it, especially using SharePoint and Teams. Anyone has access to it at any time if they need to go look at it. I think that's the most important part to it.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Yeah. Well, we've just you've just kind of unveiled the new material needs form, right? Yeah. Through through that on Teams and using Power Automate for that. And I think that that's really exciting. The plant managers are getting their arms around that. And I think it's going to make Jim's life a lot easier, and it's going to make the plant manager's life a lot easier. It's going to make your life a lot easier. So that's really impressive stuff. Very excited to see how that kind of evolves. On that front with materials, you know, we took a really different philosophy this winter than we have for a long time. You know, there's been certain winters where we've stocked up uh aggregates, and this winter we really went to let's go lean and we went really thin at all of our plants with stockpiles. And just as a you know, a cash conservation tactic. And and what what do you think we learned from this experience this year and what can we take away from that going forward?

SPEAKER_03 14:02

I think it really benefited our financials, not only the first few months of the year, but also at the end of the year, we're not spending a lot of money on product we're not gonna use for four or five months. Yeah. So that helped. It reduced our labor as well in that area, which also helps the bottom line. And on top of that, I think we used old thoughts of we're gonna have a million issues if we don't have product, if we don't have this much product, I'm scared. What if something happens? We looked at that from an outside perspective. And you guys at your three o'clock, we know what's coming up. We know we have jobs that come up daily that could add to what you might need. But knowing that we only need a certain amount, looking at those numbers over the years during the slow months, we're like, okay, we can drastically reduce this. You don't need to keep that much on hand. We can get through the winter without doing that.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

And I think the only reason, not the only reason, but we could easily look at that information with the new technology that we have. Like I could pull that information, takes me an hour or two, and I can give it to somebody and be like, these are my thoughts. I don't think we need to do this.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:06

So that would, it just improves everything around. I know with summer coming up, we're we didn't increase right away. So we had some hiccups, but getting that increase and same for summer on hand amounts, we can look at it and say, you don't need 2,000 tons.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

On average, we can bring it in and we can get a certain amount of tonnage each day from our haulers, as well as us hauling it ourselves. So it kind of is just uncomfortable right now. But I think once people get used to it, we're not going to leave you high and dry. We are looking at that. Yeah. People will see the benefit.

SPEAKER_04 15:39

Yeah. I think we've really kind of dialed in our process and educated ourselves on exactly what we can do and how long it takes. Um, so we have a lot more information now about if we put a truck on rock at whatever plant, we know how much we're going to get in a day. So we can be a lot more specific with what we're ordering and what we're getting and controlling it that way. Um, so I guess that's what I the message I want to get out to the the the haul, you know, our haulers specifically. Hopefully they're they're listening. This this episode's for you. I know you probably listen to a lot of uh mixer-specific podcasts, but this applies more to the haulers. But we are giving more specific direction on exactly how much we're ordering per plant. So I I just want to encourage you guys to ask questions if you're not sure, or if you have a suggestion. I know you guys are out there to actually seeing the piles and have kind of the real-time information. So if anything ever doesn't make sense to you or you think it makes sense to get more, just call and ask someone because it isn't just as simple as we're putting a truck on rock all day anymore.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

I think where we're headed is, you know, real-time inventories. We know exactly what we have at any given time, even as we are batching through the day, right? So as material is coming in, as it's going out, having a real-time knowledge of what we have and then what we need, so we can pinpoint not just what we need on a certain day, but by our and the flexibility to change as we need to.

SPEAKER_04 17:03

It just gives us a lot more options.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think there's a lot of exciting things still coming on that front. And as as we look at different technology options that help us get there or or like the custom stuff that that you guys are building. Yeah, I think it's really cool. When we think about from an accounting standpoint, what are like the major challenges of tracking all the different materials that we have at all the plants? Because we have a lot.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

It is sometimes a battle. So like people don't understand why we name sand multiple different things if it's coming. I mean, obviously they do if they understand certain mixed sands can go in certain mixed designs for certain work, state work. So that's a huge issue. Like, why do we, if we have why do we need to name it differently if it's the same thing and it comes from a different place? So that would be one keeping track of it all and where it's going. I think that's the hardest part. And that's really been narrowed down. But all the extras and everything, I guess from an accounting standpoint, it's just keeping track of where the material goes. And that has been something that's improved with the process we've built over the last few years because we're looking at what's going in their batch panels. We're comparing it to what Marla enters for inventory and being like, this doesn't make sense, what's going on here? And so it's really a team effort. It's not just accounting. Accounting's looking at it, but it's it's all in the plant manager's hands.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Well, I know we're trying to simplify it. I know there's times that you're looking at three different inventory methods for the same product, right? So Marla's got the receivables, so she's looking at everything that were being billed, uh, everything that's been put in the batch panel, and then the physical inventories on hand. And it's like, okay, and there's a variance between all three. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:53

So it's like uh it's figuring out what what's also another piece you missed of that is we are looking at the reports from Digital Fleet that the drivers are actually inputting their products and their their tonnage. So that's another place where it can get off. And it's really important that they're trying to be accurate with that.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Yeah, yeah, for sure. If I am a raw material hauler or a plant manager and I hear this and I go, okay, but why? Why does it matter? What how would you answer that? What what is it? Why should inventory and the processes we have set up to track that accurately, why should that matter to those folks?

SPEAKER_03 19:32

I think the bottom line is it makes your life easier before this. I did this with all my processes. They're all manual. Took me hours. I mean, you know, financials used to be so late. A lot of manual entry doing that. I improved all of those. I have one entry that's manual now, which is what Digital Fleet is hopefully going to help me with not doing anymore. And it takes me less time, less thinking. My life is easier. It's not as stressful. Am I doing this right? Am I doing this wrong? Everything's automated. It just makes your life easier. So before I pushed out all my, I want to improve everybody else's life. I already tried to improve my own and went through it. But it does make your life easier in the long run. I mean, with the needs thing, it wasn't new to the plant managers. They're filling out the same type of form that they're doing with the end of the year.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Yeah, just in a different place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

So I think it's just making life easier on everybody. We all have these battles every day of they should be focusing on other stuff, right? Slumps, water, all the stuff you guys talk about. If we can take this and make this easier on something they don't have to think about, they can focus on getting the concrete out the door.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Well, and that's that's the thing. We want to make sure that we A, have enough of the materials where we need them in the amount we need them to fulfill our customers' orders. And secondly, we want to do that movement of materials as efficiently, cost efficiently as possible, right? And so that means in the most part, using our own people, right? And so we want to maximize that and not find ourselves in a place where we're not having keeping good track and then we got to rent trucks to try to fill a gap, right? So so that and then you balancing that with having huge stockpiles that we're paying for, but not using for a long time, right? So finding that sweet spot is is why we do all these things, right? So what's the most challenging issue on inventory or anything else, the recurring issue that you have to fight your way through every month?

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Balancing my thoughts, like my brain working from accounting to operations. Like uh when I first started, Chris used to say lower your standards. Chris used to tell me some things you have to lower your standards with operations, like in a very non offensive way.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Yeah, it's like that sounds like an account.

SPEAKER_04 21:52

No, I think this all the time about working with Angela. Angela is a hundred percent in or out. Like she's not going to do something. To an 80% completion and be satisfied with it. I do things to 80% completion all the time and I'm very happy with it. But she is not happy with something until it's 100% all the way done and all the way accurate. And that's just not realistic in the like day-to-day operations of how, you know, we're dealing with rocks and sand. You're not going to get every single one in the in the bucket. So I think that's challenging, but great. Both sides of the business are better because of that. I think accounting is better because we make them be realistic. And I think we're better because they push us to be closer to that 100% whenever we can.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Yeah.

unknown 22:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:34

By lowering my standards. Operations has upped theirs.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

What's the most misunderstood part of accounting? The perception that maybe our folks have on what you guys do up front versus what reality is?

SPEAKER_03 22:47

That we're not all nerds. I feel like that's a proven.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

I am a nerd, actually.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

That's horrible. I think it is that we're just here to help, honestly, because I feel like a lot of time people will see it in a negative light, like, oh, accounting's changing something else again. But I do think at least I'm genuinely just here to help. Like I want to hear your guys' side, hear me out on my side. How can we come to a like a middle ground? I think that's the hardest thing to understand is yeah. We're just here to help.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah. Well, this is your platform. Anything else you want to talk about before we wrap it up?

SPEAKER_04 23:24

No.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

No? Okay.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

She'll save it for the next time she comes on.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Oh, that's wonderful. Part two next week. Great. Well, thank you very much for coming on. This has been a good discussion and it's it's fun to finally have you on.

SPEAKER_04 23:38

Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to Loaded, the Hon Ready Mix podcast. Share this episode with your friends, whether they're accounting nerds or not. And send us any topics. We're looking for new topics and always looking for loaded questions. So let us know what you think.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

And shout out to Brian Jones. We kept this under 30 minutes just for you. All right. Take care.