Shop Talk
Scaling a Powder Coating Shop Without Sacrificing Quality
Identity & metadata
Video title
Scaling a Powder Coating Shop Without Sacrificing Quality | Steelhead Shop Talk
Series
Steelhead Shop Talk
Host
Dean Halonen, CRO and Co-Founder, Steelhead Technologies
Guest
Adam Swift
Guest title
Head of Operations
Company
Powder Coating Technologies (PCT)
Location
Plymouth, Minnesota
Recorded
October 21, 2026
Video type
Steelhead Shop Talk Podcast Episode
Industry
Powder Coating; Metal Finishing; Manufacturing; Job Shops
AI-optimized summary block
What this episode covers
Dean Halonen sits down with Adam Swift of Powder Coating Technologies to discuss how PCT is managing rapid growth without sacrificing quality, lead time, operator buy-in, or customer experience. Adam shares lessons from his Army and Amazon background and explains how the team uses Steelhead, data, leadership, and repeatable processes to scale the shop.
Growth strategy
PCT has shifted from smaller consumer-oriented work toward larger B2B customers that fit its equipment and capabilities. Adam explains that winning those customers starts with targeting the right work, but keeping them depends on consistently delivering quality finishes, accurate counts and packaging, and short lead times.
Quality management
PCT uses Steelhead to formally track rework, build a quality data set, and identify patterns across colors, suppliers, batches, operators, and processes. Adam describes using rework data to investigate recurring marks on a specific color and using that information to guide root-cause analysis.
Lead-time management
Adam uses Watchtower and Steelhead reporting every day to understand backlog, job stage, parts per booth, average parts per cart, and production trends. That data helps PCT estimate lead times, communicate honestly with customers, prioritize strategic work, and decide when additional hiring or capacity is justified.
Scaling capacity
PCT moved from one shift to two and is preparing to add a third. Rather than guessing when to hire, the team uses sustained backlog and lead-time data as signals that demand is durable enough to support additional labor and investment.
Leadership & operator buy-in
Adam emphasizes taking care of people, leading from the front, testing new processes personally, asking operators for input, explaining the reason behind changes, and quickly correcting processes that do not work. The goal is to make operators part of the system rather than simply forcing new procedures onto them.
Operational problem solving
The team uses Steelhead workflows and Watchtower to solve practical shop-floor problems, including identifying incoming orders that require powder not currently in inventory so material can be ordered before production begins.
Hiring & onboarding
PCT looks for reliability, integrity, coachability, honesty, and team fit. New employees receive structured onboarding that includes understanding purchase orders, sales orders, work orders, workboards, and how Steelhead connects what happens in the system to what happens physically on the shop floor.
Operator development
Adam shares an example of a younger employee who initially struggled to keep physical work aligned with Steelhead but later caught a subtle part-number error that Adam and the AI order-entry process had missed. He presents the story as evidence that coaching, accountability, and operator ownership can create stronger quality control.
Future focus
PCT is focused on scaling its systems from one shift to two and then three while preserving quality and short lead times. The company is also pursuing additional certification and expanding its use of Steelhead Specs so requirements such as color, temperature, and process-specific instructions can remain consistent across every shift.
Core takeaway
Fast growth is sustainable only when the operating system, leadership culture, and shop-floor team scale together. PCT is using data and Steelhead to make capacity decisions, maintain lead times, strengthen quality, standardize work, and bring operators into the improvement process as the company grows.
Full transcript
Transcript notes
The transcript below is preserved from the provided source, including transcription errors, repeated words, filler words, and incomplete statements.
Transcript
[00:00:00:00 - 00:00:07:02]
before we joined, like, oftentimes we had we would we would bring in an order, we'd get it all prepped and realized we didn't have the power for it.
[00:00:07:03 - 00:00:25:19]
Right. It was a special a special order. Hey, let's build an audit within steelhead where we can look at, you know, again, let's go to Watchtower. Let's see everything that we haven't received in yet. Let's see what the powder is. Let's verify that against our inventory. Okay. You know, now we can understand on a daily basis new orders that come in that we don't have powder for.
[00:00:25:24 - 00:00:31:08]
We can put them in a different process to make sure that we get that powder ordered before we start working it on the floor.
[00:00:31:10 - 00:00:45:14]
Right. And showing them that of like again, hey, we're we're implementing processes that are going to make your job easier.
[00:00:45:16 - 00:01:05:10]
Locked and loaded. I can hear you loud and clear, Adam. So. Thanks. All right. Well, thanks, everybody, for for joining us today. Here on the Shop Talk podcast, which is all about those that are obsessed with the craft of manufacturing. We have a very special guest. I'm your host, Dean. I'm the Crow and co-founder of Stella Technologies.
[00:01:05:13 - 00:01:31:09]
And our special guest here out of Plymouth, Minnesota is Mr. Adam Swift. So Adam comes from powder coating technologies. But, Adam, real quick, before we get into powder coating technologies. What do you talk about your background of like where you came from and how you got here? Yeah, absolutely. Dean, again, thanks for having me. You know, I would say my background, I've got kind of an interesting one or varied one.
[00:01:31:11 - 00:01:51:03]
I've got some time working in a steel mill. I was in the Army for about 20 years. A lot of time at Amazon and then some time doing a startup. Logistics in the intermodal space. Chad Fifield, our owner. And so he and I worked together at Amazon. New didn't know each other in the Army, but kind of had that shared background.
[00:01:51:05 - 00:02:24:02]
And so when he was, you know, Growing Powder Coating Technologies asked me to come join him earlier this year as the head of operations, running everything out on the shop floor. So it was great opportunity and was excited to join him again. Wow. Well, Adam, thank you for your service. And I do think your your operations background in the military and in Amazon has probably paved the way for the growth that we're seeing at at Powder Coating Technologies that I just talked to Chad this morning, and I'm not sure if you're comfortable sharing the growth numbers, but probably the fastest growing company.
[00:02:24:03 - 00:02:55:15]
We have about 330 or 350 customers. I don't think anybody is growing as fast as powder coating technologies. So you guys should be extremely proud of what you've done in your 12 months here. And what's Chad's done in his 24 months? I think under 24 months of actually operating the business, the growth is unbelievable. I guess, Adam, if you wouldn't mind sharing, like, from your perspective, what has been what's been the keys to the growth at powder coating tech?
[00:02:55:17 - 00:03:31:09]
Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I think there's kind of two parts to it. Like what? What did we do to generate the growth? And then what are we doing to serve the growth and maintain the growth. Right. I think from, from a generating it, you know, Chad put a lot of time and effort in with our, our sales team, identifying who our, you know, who are ideal customers are, you know, who we should target out in the market and really kind of transitioning from maybe a smaller chop shop that does more, you know, patio furniture, smaller things to a much bigger business, to business.
[00:03:31:11 - 00:04:02:19]
You know, we've got some, you know, capabilities that at PCT, some very large ovens where we can do, you know, big things and really shifting our focus to targeting those types of customers, I think really was the genesis of it. The next part, though, is once you target, that is you got to deliver. And that's really where I think we've, we've shined over the last, you know, year and a half to two years is when you get those bigger customers, you know, who have higher expectations, higher, you know, things for quality that they need.
[00:04:02:21 - 00:04:20:08]
You've got to be able to deliver and meet those things. And so that's where I think, you know, Chad and my background on the operations side, bringing that experience to PCT. That's really what's allowed us to, to deliver for those customers. And once they see you can deliver, you know, then they just the floodgates open.
[00:04:20:10 - 00:04:39:19]
And it's kind of a flywheel from there where, you know, other customers, see, you know, who you're serving, and they're like, oh, if you're if you're able to deliver for customer A, you know, you can definitely deliver for us. And so it kind of just compounds on itself from there. Wow. I would agree. So a little, little backstory.
[00:04:39:20 - 00:05:03:06]
We're about five years into steelhead, right. And we started with one of our very first customers was a powder coating shop in Mankato, Minnesota. And then we've evolved a little bit past powder coating. You know, we do like plating, anodizing, painting a lot of metal finishing, heat treating type parts. And now we've gotten some fabrication customers as well because they say like, hey, we actually powder coat and we assemble and we weld.
[00:05:03:08 - 00:05:23:19]
So we've grown a little bit, but by and large, our customer base is growing around 17% annually. It's like around 300 and, you know, a little over 300 customers, which is good. I think it beats the average economy by a significant margin, but it's not beating powder coating tech. You guys actually are on the top end there.
[00:05:23:21 - 00:05:49:18]
And the interesting thing is our customers are growing fast and they don't have like a CRM or we don't have like marketing really in, in the steel platform. We don't have like campaigns. It's like it's literally growth. By I mean, powder coating is a service business, right? And just like out delivering the competition is like the primary vector for growth that it is actually mostly.
[00:05:49:22 - 00:06:08:16]
I mean, yes, you have to have a fair price and you have to do what you say on the, you know, sales and production. You have to be in lockstep. But on the delivery side specifically, Adam, if we could dig in a little bit there. And I like the idea. Ideal customer profile. You know who's going to, like, who needs our equipment more than anybody or our service more than anybody.
[00:06:08:17 - 00:06:36:11]
And then, you know, having sales be, you know, in lockstep with production, even on terms of like, getting the right type of work in the door that we can actually deliver. Well. But digging into the delivery side, what does he see? What do you like? There's expectations. There's quality. There's on time delivery. How do you think about what great delivery looks like in the powder coating in the metal finishing in the job shop world when it's so unpredictable.
[00:06:36:12 - 00:06:57:18]
Hour by hour, day by day. I think the two things that I look at is the quality of the actual finish. You know, like, that's the first thing customers are going to see is, you know, they're not seeing blemishes, they're not seeing defects. And so, you know, utilizing the knowledge that we have in-house, to make sure that we always deliver that first.
[00:06:57:19 - 00:07:24:07]
You know, when I talk about quality, that's the first part. There's a second part of quality. That is just how we interact with the customer in terms of accuracy. You know, do we receive in and send out the same amount of parts for the customer? You know, do we package them correctly? Do we package them securely so that when the customer receives that back from us, it looks professional and it gives them kind of that confidence that, you know, we're handling their stuff well.
[00:07:24:09 - 00:07:51:00]
And I think the third thing is lead time. How fast are we turning around the parts for the customer? And, you know, all of those three things that I just mentioned is what we use steelhead for. You know, prior to to Chad bringing steelhead on to city. Everything was was paper and spreadsheets at best. And now we fully utilize steelhead to track all of those different things, whether it's, you know, rework and sending stuff back through tracking.
[00:07:51:00 - 00:08:08:16]
How long does it take? Having a schedule so that we can give a customer an accurate estimate of what our lead time is, and when we can turn their parts around for them. There's there's still a lot of meat on the bone within steelhead in terms of, you know, capabilities and things that we want to utilize more as we grow.
[00:08:08:22 - 00:08:25:24]
But those are really the three that you know, me as the head of operations that I look at when it comes to quality for the customer. Got it. And just to go into that a little deeper too, as far as the quality you mentioned finish, you mentioned packaging like how how it appears and it hits there receiving DACA on the customer.
[00:08:26:00 - 00:08:44:22]
Like that first impression of the parts. And the actual part quality is pretty critical. And then the delivery. But on the on the finish side and the rework side. Have you guys been have you been looking at the data inside of steelhead in terms of like, you know, what's who or what or what paints or what operators are causing the reworks?
[00:08:44:22 - 00:09:09:20]
And then what does that data, how is that impacted how you operate the business, like the the quality data itself? Yeah, we have and it's that's something also that there's a lot of meat left in the bone for us to do. We recently brought on the quality module in the last two months. And terms of like fully utilizing that, that's, that's still top of my plate to like, get us there.
[00:09:09:22 - 00:09:29:22]
We are we are big data folks. And I think that I can talk more on on the lead time side for how we still have in the data, the data piece of it. Right now it's just tracking. So if I have a piece that needs to get reworked, you know, prior, you would kind of just send it to the back of the shop and start over again and not necessarily track where it's at.
[00:09:30:00 - 00:09:56:11]
Now we're utilizing the, you know, the quality module in steelhead, working together with your team to kind of build that recipe or that workflow within the system so we can send it back in a much more, you know, official manner. Right. Like within the system, we're utilizing that so that I am building up the database, you know, right now, like we don't have a lot of rework, fortunately, you know, knock on wood, because we've got good, good painters and folks out there.
[00:09:56:13 - 00:10:15:01]
But, you know, over time, as we build that up, we're going to be able to see see trends. You know, we were working on a problem set a couple of weeks ago where on a particular color, we kept seeing marks. And we probably wouldn't have noticed that if we hadn't pulled up. You know, here's our list of reworks in steelhead.
[00:10:15:05 - 00:10:34:24]
Oh, they all happen to be a certain color. You know, and ended up not being anything with that color, but it was just an interesting data point for us to look at. You know, we went down and research that color and we researched the supplier, the batch number. All those ended up being being okay. But those are things that we're well positioned to do in the future as we grow that data set on the quality side.
[00:10:35:01 - 00:10:53:04]
Yep. Yep. That makes sense. And then on the lead time side, I was at a trade show once in Fab Tech fab Tech in Georgia. Atlanta, Georgia is years ago and we were talking to a lot of fab shops there. Not not surprisingly, and a lot of them were looking at in housing, their powder coating in housing, their metal finishing.
[00:10:53:06 - 00:11:13:20]
I think two thirds of them said, hey, we're here to, you know, in-house, our in-house, our metal finishing. And then one third of saying, oh yeah, we outsource it to the to the job shops. And I asked him like why in the world would you. There's metal finishers powder coated. Especially in like, every city in America right now.
[00:11:13:20 - 00:11:34:20]
Why in the world would you ever in-house it? The number one reason was lead time. The number two reason was quality. So like that, that is the one thing of like, if you want to keep the work right like that, in a way, the biggest competitor is actually your customer in-house in their work. So to keep the work, you got to deliver on time and it's got to be good quality.
[00:11:34:20 - 00:11:53:16]
That just has to be the price was that was the third reason. So like price is not the top concern. If the lead time and quality are, strong. So on the lead time specifically Adam, how do you work with I mean, you got lead time is the hardest thing to maintain when you're growing. If you're if you're going to flap, flap flat, it's pretty easy.
[00:11:53:16 - 00:12:20:10]
It's repeatable. It's standard. It's dead. Right. A standard lead time because there's. But when you're growing your rate. It is a how in the world you keep up on lead times. And when you have such hypergrowth. Yeah. It's I mean, that's that's the million dollar question. So that's really where we do use data to track our performance and track what we, what we have on the floor.
[00:12:20:12 - 00:12:48:09]
You know, we get a large variety of jobs. Whether it's one very large part, you know, or 5000 smaller parts. And those look, you know, very different in the system. And like the lead times on those are very different. So how do you account for, for that? One of the things I do is I use steelhead every day and I use it for the, the Watchtower function, which basically gives me a readout of every part that I have in the system.
[00:12:48:11 - 00:13:09:16]
What stage at that? And I, you know, dump that CSV into a pivot table every day and just do some quick analysis on, you know, what is my backlog look like? I also use the reporting function to figure out how many parts per booth I paint every day. What's the average number of parts per cart that we paint every day?
[00:13:09:22 - 00:13:30:16]
You know, and when I build these, pull these data sets on a daily basis, that really allows me to understand, okay, you know, this customer might have run in a huge order with 10,000 parts, but they're small. I can look at some of that other data and say, this might take me X number of days versus a, you know, one part that's big, that's going to take up my oven for a longer time.
[00:13:30:18 - 00:13:49:04]
But utilizing that data to see what my trends are, how long stuff is taking me allows me to go to our sales team and our sales call, say, hey, this is what we have on the floor. We're looking at, you know, a three day lead time right now. If we bring on a new customer or we're talking with a new customer, we can be transparent with them.
[00:13:49:09 - 00:14:10:01]
We can make decisions internally to say this is a strategic customer for us. We're going to prioritize it. And it also drives our our hiring decisions. Right. Like we've got kind of some internal guidance and guidelines on how we want to keep our lead times under. And when we start seeing trends like where we're going to get over that, that's the trigger for us to hire and grow.
[00:14:10:03 - 00:14:28:02]
And that's really kind of the mode we're in right now. We've gone from one shift to two shifts. We're hiring for a third shift right now. And it's, you know, that's the scary part when you're like, hey, I need to I'm going to hire shifts and I'm going to make this investment into these people in this equipment.
[00:14:28:04 - 00:14:44:06]
How long is how long am I going to have that work for? You know, it's, you know, you got to cross that bridge and jump with two feet. And, you know, having that data allows us to be comfortable with making that decision to say, hey, we've we've had this backlog, we've had these lead times, you know, for a long enough time.
[00:14:44:06 - 00:15:06:11]
And our projections in the future, you know, show that we're going to continue to have that, okay. We're at the right spot. We're ready to grow. Let's let's make that leap of that investment. Yep. Yep. And that obviously has to. It's a lot of back and forth with sales and and yourself to figure out like hey, is this is this a flash in the pan or is this customer staying or is this a real, you know, durable continuous volume?
[00:15:06:11 - 00:15:26:15]
And I think when you have those so we've never seen like that custom patio work ever really scale. It is the more commercial repeat type customers that you can really build on a great business upon. So just because you can land them and the work keeps coming and you can add and then you don't, you know, don't you don't lose.
[00:15:26:17 - 00:15:53:24]
You know, when Jimmy gets his new patio side, he's not gone. He's, you know, they're coming back week after week after week. So that's smart to go after those customers. And now when you're modeling your lead time, I agree with you. Parts are extremely variable, especially in batch powder. The parts are hyper variable. So probably not the best predictor of, backlog, but cards is probably a little more stable.
[00:15:53:24 - 00:16:17:07]
Would you say like cards per day is like, and is everything kind of generally priced off? How many carts it's going to take up the on the pricing side? I mean, it's an factor, right? Like it's something that inputs into it. You know, we look at, you know, all the prep that goes into a part that we expect, you know, is there surface prep or pre work that needs to happen?
[00:16:17:09 - 00:16:37:00]
You know, if it's large parts that are going to take up some of our smaller assets, I'm going to say smaller like, we have fewer of them. Like how many carts can hold this piece? You know, the timing of and that it's going to take the opportunity cost of doing the part. Like those are all inputs that definitely, you know, we consider when we price a product.
[00:16:37:02 - 00:17:01:14]
Got it. And that's that's great. So like Adam, I'd say there's like from what I see from my, my vantage point is that most people like what you just said here isn't exactly rocket science in terms of like, hey, you know, like we have a, a certain amount we can get done per day, right? We're going to reduce it down to these variables, parts racks, surface area.
[00:17:01:15 - 00:17:28:18]
Right. And then we have there's, there's a backlog. We have a turn time. Like everybody knows the lead time lower. It means more sales. Right. Longer means less sales and less happy customers. Right. And then the quality. Now the the biggest variable I see is like, not in the actual intellectual science of powder coating. Like the like, you know, like the, the specific gravity of the coating and the electronically charged and the spray distance.
[00:17:28:19 - 00:17:57:08]
Like that seems to be pretty stable. Shop to shop to shop. The the best practices or principles of lead time quality reworks. Customer service. Everyone seems to understand what that is. It seems like the biggest variable I see from shop to shop is how well the operators can fall in line with the leaders of vision. Like do the do the operators actually believe and buy into turn?
[00:17:57:09 - 00:18:21:15]
Time is everything. And do the operators buy into the quality and the operators buy into, you know, tracking the parts in and out while the operators, you know, like believe in that. Like, do the operators believe the same belief as the leadership or the ownership? And then when? So it's a beautiful outcome for the business for for the customers.
[00:18:21:16 - 00:18:39:06]
Like everybody wins. And then I see some poor poorer operators, like they can't get their operators, get the leadership, operations, leadership. They can't get their operators like to buy in and to use the system and like, say, hey, we want to like, we want to set a record here. We want to get improved. We want to, you know, grow.
[00:18:39:07 - 00:19:06:02]
We want to, you know, double, triple, quadruple the business. So what have you found from your maybe military or from your Amazon background? Like, how do you get your operators to buy into what you believe is the right way to run the business? Yeah, it's a great question. And again, I think that's a key to our success with with Chad and I both have an extensive, I would say, people leadership experience from from the Army.
[00:19:06:04 - 00:19:27:18]
Amazon as well. But, you know, we both kind of grew up and had our first real like management leadership army. And from there, you always start with taking care of two people. If you take care of your people, they're going to want to work there. They're going to want to work hard for you. You know, I think we always come to the table with the, you know, the assumption that folks are good and they want to work hard.
[00:19:27:18 - 00:19:47:01]
And it's up to us as leaders to to put them in the right spot to do that. So I think if you start from that, that mindset, you're already ahead of the game. And they're going to be much more open to listening to your vision and believing your vision, being willing to try it. I think the second part of that is you got to get on the ground and do it with them.
[00:19:47:03 - 00:20:05:09]
And, you know, again, that's a that's an army ism from Chad and I of we're never going to ask our guys to do something that we wouldn't do. So, you know, this weekend I was out there on the floor sanding with guys. Any any new product that we are not product, any new process that we roll out.
[00:20:05:11 - 00:20:20:06]
I'm always going to, you know, test it on my own on the side before I even bring it to the guys. When I do bring it to the guys, I want their input on it. Hey, this is what I want to do. Right. And I've only been in the powder coating business for a little bit. These guys have decades of it here.
[00:20:20:08 - 00:20:40:10]
And so if you're not getting there by in first to say, hey, you know, what are your ideas? You know, if we're going to if we're going to implement this new process, you know, what do you see what's important to you? Getting their input up front gives them a personal stake in the game, and they want to see their ideas realized as well.
[00:20:40:12 - 00:20:55:02]
And then once you've gone through that process, you've got to test it and you've got to be out there to see if it works. And if it if it doesn't work, you've got to be quick to pull it back and say, okay, I we tried this. It didn't work. I'm going to go fix it before we, we try it again.
[00:20:55:04 - 00:21:13:01]
You know, and your team will probably laugh because I'm, I want to say I'm hard on the steelhead team, but when, when things don't work within steelhead the way that I want them to, you know, I'm on the phone at 5:30 a.m. calling your support team, saying, hey, I just rolled out this new process. It didn't work the way I expected it.
[00:21:13:03 - 00:21:29:20]
I can speak to it well, because I was out there, like on the floor with the guys when we rolled it out, and I. And I know exactly like, what needs to change or happen. And so when they see that, like, they see that their leaders are really trying to bring them a good product that makes their their jobs easier.
[00:21:29:22 - 00:21:55:04]
That's where you make your money with it. You know, you need to be able to show them why we're doing something right. If I'm going to add a step to your job, what's the value? And so I go back to again, like the Watchtower function in steelhead where, you know, a lot of times guys on a certain, you know, part of the of our process that they've got a part in front of them, but they can't find it in steelhead.
[00:21:55:06 - 00:22:08:16]
And I just showed them, hey, look at this Watchtower function. You can search the part in here and it will show you everything. And like, you're going to find it, and, you know, like that, like, clicks on, I'm like, oh, okay. Like this. Just, you know, how many times have I been trying to find a part within steelhead?
[00:22:08:18 - 00:22:25:18]
I've got the physical part in front of me. I can't find it in the computer. It's super frustrating. Cool. We just solved that problem and we showed them how this makes their job easier. You know, before we joined, like, oftentimes we had we would we would bring in an order, we'd get it all prepped and realized we didn't have the power for it.
[00:22:25:19 - 00:22:44:10]
Right. It was a special a special order. Hey, let's build an audit within steelhead where we can look at, you know, again, let's go to Watchtower. Let's see everything that we haven't received in yet. Let's see what the powder is. Let's verify that against our inventory. Okay. You know, now we can understand on a daily basis new orders that come in that we don't have powder for.
[00:22:44:15 - 00:23:03:19]
We can put them in a different process to make sure that we get that powder ordered before we start working it on the floor. Right. And showing them that of like again, hey, we're we're implementing processes that are going to make your job easier. We're bringing you along to to be a part of it with us. And then once we have a good product in place, a process in place, there you go.
[00:23:03:20 - 00:23:23:13]
Give them the free rein to go out there and try and make it better. And when they bring you suggestions to say, hey, this is great. What if it did this as well? Cool. Let me call steelhead right now. You know, like that's a great idea. Or hey, let's think about this and sit down. But you know, if if they have the ability to make their own changes and have that buy in.
[00:23:23:15 - 00:23:41:09]
That's where you bring along the vision. Like they almost, you know, they don't even know that they're doing it. If you treat your folks the right way and bring them along with you. Yeah. Adam. That's a that's beautiful, actually. Unbelievable. So, like, just reiterate, take care of the people. Trust them. Right. Like, they're going to be good people and work hard.
[00:23:41:11 - 00:23:59:20]
Lead from the front. Not like, like up into my tower. Like, hey, go stack the bricks. Right. You're out there with them, showing them a better way to to do the work. And then test it first ask for their feedback. So, like, they're actually a part of it, and it's not even like, a it's not even like a leader.
[00:23:59:21 - 00:24:19:05]
Like, you know, there's so much like, books and slide decks out there on leadership, but like, it's actually real. Like like your background is not powder coating, right? And you come in here and you can lead a team and have a transformative outcome not being a quote unquote powder coating, you know, 30 year wizard, but more or less like trusting the team.
[00:24:19:06 - 00:24:41:02]
They trust you. And it actually it actually prints unbelievable results. And then I think owning things when they don't work like, hey hand up. You know, I tried this. It didn't work, right. Eat, eat, eat the sandwich. And then, and then the why. I think the why is often under underutilized as well in terms of like, here's like here's why.
[00:24:41:04 - 00:24:58:24]
Like we have to do this change X, and not just because Adam thinks it's a great idea from his. You know, I agree, tower. It's because like here's why. Because your downstream operator doesn't need. They need to know where the parts are. Or we need to know that we're making money on this job, or we need to know, you know, where we're losing on rework.
[00:24:59:00 - 00:25:28:10]
Like, whatever the reason is explaining that. And then I think people feel valued like, hey, this is like, Adam values my opinion. That's why he's explaining things to me, because he thinks I'll have maybe good feedback on how to improve it if I understand the context of the change. So, yeah. That's unbelievable. And now on the hard on steelhead side, I've often noticed, actually, our best customers are extremely hard on us.
[00:25:28:12 - 00:25:50:16]
And then they're also in turn, harder on their people to, like, they hold us steelhead accountable, to, you know, to doing it the right way. And then they hold their team accountable to doing it the right way. And those actually other customers that have the best outcomes, frankly, it's like have steelhead, the leadership, the operations team, everybody's, you know, in lockstep.
[00:25:50:16 - 00:26:13:11]
And then it actually works. So I actually love when love when you said that you're you're hard on the steelhead team. On the people side specifically, how do you. I saw you guys are hiring on LinkedIn. How do you hire like, what do you look for? I know you guys are currently staffing for Chad mentioned, mostly like on the operations or operator side.
[00:26:13:13 - 00:26:31:05]
What do you look for in a great operator? And maybe how do you how do you sell powder coating technologies to them? Yeah. You know, it's it's a team fit thing, right? You know, I think there's some basic stuff that we're always going to want. Like, can you show up on time? You know, are you reliable? You know, do you have integrity?
[00:26:31:11 - 00:26:49:12]
You know, like, we're going to ask them for some level of self-reflection to say, like, hey, everyone makes mistakes, but like, do you own it? Are you are you coachable? Are you teachable? You know, do you tell the truth when, when something does go wrong? You know, those are things like, that's just the ticket to the game, right?
[00:26:49:13 - 00:27:06:20]
Like, you need that to get into the into the stadium to see how you play. And then we'll take them out and we show them the process and we introduce them to the team, you know, see how they how they would fit there. Because, you know, we've got some guys who've been coding for, you know, almost 30 years who are super talented.
[00:27:07:00 - 00:27:26:16]
And we're also building our bench of everyone else so that we can have more powder coders so that they can grow their skills and grow within within PCT. But we're looking for folks who kind of have that, you know, that mentality of, hey, I want to come here. You know, I'm willing to learn. I'm open to to being a part of a team.
[00:27:26:18 - 00:27:46:20]
And a lot of that's just kind of, you know, feel like you take them out, you show them the process. See how they they react with it. You know, ask them good, deep questions about their background to get to know them and see how they react in different situations. And then when they, when they show up, I think, you know, again, it's trusting in people and seeing the good in them.
[00:27:46:20 - 00:28:01:05]
But, you know, my responsibility as a leader is I need to give that person a good onboarding. I need to make sure that they understand, hey, this is how PCT works. This is our culture. This you know, we're going to teach you all these things, but I'm not just going to throw you to the wolves and then be upset when you don't.
[00:28:01:10 - 00:28:19:02]
You don't know what to do. You know, we're going to bring you on the right way. Get you the right training. Help you through things. You know, the first thing I do with folks is I sit down with them for an hour and go through steelhead and say, here's what a Po is. That comes from our customer, and here's where you can find it and steal it.
[00:28:19:03 - 00:28:42:15]
Here's what the sales order is. Here's what a work order is. Here's what a work board is, because everything that they're going to do on the floor is going to be in steelhead. You know, they can't do that in steelhead. We've either got to teach them or we've got to find somewhere for them. But giving them that basis of, you know, if you're out there, most guys are going to know how to wash and move stuff around or drive a forklift.
[00:28:42:17 - 00:29:06:08]
But if they're not, they don't see how that fits into steelhead, which is what runs our business. They can get pretty lost. You know, like if someone doesn't explain steelhead to you and you just kind of, like, open a computer and you're trying to figure it out, like it can be a little overwhelming. And so, you know, I that is my job as the leader is to make sure they have a soft landing here and that they someone shows them how to do it.
[00:29:06:08 - 00:29:39:24]
And they are armed with the tools to succeed from day one. Awesome. And now, Adam, I know we're coming up on time here, but two last questions. One of them is, in your time here, I think it's been a roughly a coming up on a year with with PCT. What's been the proudest moment for you, whether it's either a change you implemented or some team even working on, or an operator specifically like if you could reflect on your on your time here, what's your proudest moment of like?
[00:29:40:00 - 00:30:08:23]
Man, that was hard. But man, we pulled it off. At PCT. Yeah. I'm always going to go back to to people accomplishments. And so we've got a younger guy that we hired. And he, he didn't fully understand why. Having, like, steelhead matched the real world was important. Super hard worker, a really good kid, but he was kind of just going as fast as he could.
[00:30:08:24 - 00:30:31:07]
Throwing parts on racks, pushing him downstream. And a couple times, like, you know, it really kind of gummed up our operation because we'd have multiple carts that were, you know, didn't match steelhead and we'd have to stop, you know, hit pause, make sure that everything was correct from a quality standpoint before we move forward. And, you know, we did some root cause analysis to figure out.
[00:30:31:09 - 00:30:51:00]
It was it was an operator error that he just wrecked the wrong part. And it's not easy. You know, like there are you guys know better than anyone different variations of parts that look the exact same. You know, they've got these really long part numbers that might be only off by 1 or 2 digits. And so you've got to have a lot of attention to detail to get that right.
[00:30:51:02 - 00:31:15:09]
And so, you know, I worked with them and work with them. And the moment was after a while, like he actually caught something that I had missed. I had entered in using the AI function of steelhead. And the AI kind of does what AI doesn't sometimes, and it made the best decision that it could, but it very slightly changed the name of a part number that I didn't catch when I was doing my checks.
[00:31:15:14 - 00:31:30:06]
And this kid came up to me as he was trying to rack the parts later that day and was like, hey, this doesn't make sense that the names are off. And I, you know, that dealt with them and we dug in together and was like, oh, you're right. And I put this order and it was AI. And I didn't catch this like, great job.
[00:31:30:07 - 00:31:49:24]
You know, you just saved, you know, all these processes or all these, you know, pinch points downrange, you know, all these different things that could have happened. You know, three weeks ago, you know, I was kind of reading either I act because you were racking stuff wrong and you just, you know, caught one of my mistakes, which is great to see, you know, like, we're a team and we're there to to back up.
[00:31:50:01 - 00:32:08:06]
But that was really kind of, you know, like, really proud moment of like, hey, man, like, you caught my mistake and I'm going to own it, and now I'm going to go back to steal and be like, hey, AI changed this part number. What? You know, let's get this fixed. Right? And from, you know, the youngest kid on our team that was struggling with steelhead a month before.
[00:32:08:08 - 00:32:25:13]
Caught a pretty complex error, which was really fun to see. Wow. That's pretty cool when you have, like, the turnaround story of, like, I think a lot of times the culture is like what you celebrate and what you reward. Like, you know, you didn't try to hide your mistake under the rug. It's like, hey. Great job. You know, you found this could have been a massive rework.
[00:32:25:13 - 00:32:54:03]
Expensive. Could have lost a customer. Extremely expensive. Right. So instead, we caught the fix way upstream, which is a beautiful, beautiful story. Adam, last question here. What about the future? So obviously AI order entry is a new feature. And steelhead apparently had an error there. It is getting much more reliable. And then I guess in the in the era of AI, in all the data center work that's going on there, you guys mentioned you're adding the third shift.
[00:32:54:06 - 00:33:17:05]
Like, what's your top, top priority for the next 12, 24, 36 months at PCT? Like is there any like are you shooting for any anything specific as far as like you know, you're taking all your, you know, mental energy to like go towards a certain goal or is there any big achievement you have in your head for what success looks like for you and PCT?
[00:33:17:07 - 00:33:41:11]
Yeah. So we you know, we just went from 1 to 2 shifts and we're we're expanding the three here shortly. And that's a big step for us. The the concern, the concern, the thing that I'm focused on is how do we scale across from one shift to two to the the three. Right. Because then the bigger you get, I it becomes harder for me to go individually and make sure each shift is doing the right thing.
[00:33:41:11 - 00:34:03:22]
So how are we setting up systems that are going to scale across all of those things? We're currently in the process of getting AMA certified. You know, we've we've done all of our testing and send it off. It's currently getting getting tested. And so we're, we're, you know, in that process. And we're going to start small of like, hey, we're going to have one shift that, you know, we're going to start with and make sure they run it really, really well.
[00:34:03:23 - 00:34:26:18]
And then how do we scale that across all the other shifts using using steelhead. I've been we just got the specs function kind of up and running on on the amateur part, but there's just a whole bunch more that we can do with specs within steelhead to help us scale across these different shifts. You know, like as there's different parts that need a certain thing or a certain color that needs to be baked at a certain temperature.
[00:34:26:24 - 00:34:52:11]
You know, there's my head is just full of ideas of how I can use that spec function to to help us maintain that quality as we grow across the different shifts. So, you know, our big thing is, as we get these different certifications, different certifications that allow us to serve new customer markets, we can't lose our, you know, our true value of, again, having good quality and short lead times for the customer.
[00:34:52:13 - 00:35:10:12]
And we're we're not going to go too fast and Russian a failure. You know, like if it's a certification, we're going to start on one shift and it's not going to go to the other shifts until we know that, you know, we've tested internally and they can do it the right way. And again, using steelhead and the different functions in there to help us do that.
[00:35:10:14 - 00:35:27:24]
Awesome. Oh, Adam. That's that's, that's that's easy to say. Hard to do. Right. Scale preserves the culture of the quality, the everything you've done on one shift and then triple it, but no longer like you can't be there for three shifts in a day or in, in a week. So, yeah. Best of luck to you and the company.
[00:35:28:00 - 00:35:45:08]
Steelhead will be here stride for stride with you guys. And I think you and Chad should be very proud of being the fastest growing company on steelhead. And I think there's going to be probably 350, maybe 400 companies coming for that title next year. But best of luck with everything at oh, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
[00:35:45:09 - 00:35:51:07]
We love working with you guys. Awesome. All right. Have a great day. Thank you. Take care. See ya.
before we joined, like, oftentimes we had we would we would bring in an order, we'd get it all prepped and realized we didn't have the power for it.
[00:00:07:03 - 00:00:25:19]
Right. It was a special a special order. Hey, let's build an audit within steelhead where we can look at, you know, again, let's go to Watchtower. Let's see everything that we haven't received in yet. Let's see what the powder is. Let's verify that against our inventory. Okay. You know, now we can understand on a daily basis new orders that come in that we don't have powder for.
[00:00:25:24 - 00:00:31:08]
We can put them in a different process to make sure that we get that powder ordered before we start working it on the floor.
[00:00:31:10 - 00:00:45:14]
Right. And showing them that of like again, hey, we're we're implementing processes that are going to make your job easier.
[00:00:45:16 - 00:01:05:10]
Locked and loaded. I can hear you loud and clear, Adam. So. Thanks. All right. Well, thanks, everybody, for for joining us today. Here on the Shop Talk podcast, which is all about those that are obsessed with the craft of manufacturing. We have a very special guest. I'm your host, Dean. I'm the Crow and co-founder of Stella Technologies.
[00:01:05:13 - 00:01:31:09]
And our special guest here out of Plymouth, Minnesota is Mr. Adam Swift. So Adam comes from powder coating technologies. But, Adam, real quick, before we get into powder coating technologies. What do you talk about your background of like where you came from and how you got here? Yeah, absolutely. Dean, again, thanks for having me. You know, I would say my background, I've got kind of an interesting one or varied one.
[00:01:31:11 - 00:01:51:03]
I've got some time working in a steel mill. I was in the Army for about 20 years. A lot of time at Amazon and then some time doing a startup. Logistics in the intermodal space. Chad Fifield, our owner. And so he and I worked together at Amazon. New didn't know each other in the Army, but kind of had that shared background.
[00:01:51:05 - 00:02:24:02]
And so when he was, you know, Growing Powder Coating Technologies asked me to come join him earlier this year as the head of operations, running everything out on the shop floor. So it was great opportunity and was excited to join him again. Wow. Well, Adam, thank you for your service. And I do think your your operations background in the military and in Amazon has probably paved the way for the growth that we're seeing at at Powder Coating Technologies that I just talked to Chad this morning, and I'm not sure if you're comfortable sharing the growth numbers, but probably the fastest growing company.
[00:02:24:03 - 00:02:55:15]
We have about 330 or 350 customers. I don't think anybody is growing as fast as powder coating technologies. So you guys should be extremely proud of what you've done in your 12 months here. And what's Chad's done in his 24 months? I think under 24 months of actually operating the business, the growth is unbelievable. I guess, Adam, if you wouldn't mind sharing, like, from your perspective, what has been what's been the keys to the growth at powder coating tech?
[00:02:55:17 - 00:03:31:09]
Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I think there's kind of two parts to it. Like what? What did we do to generate the growth? And then what are we doing to serve the growth and maintain the growth. Right. I think from, from a generating it, you know, Chad put a lot of time and effort in with our, our sales team, identifying who our, you know, who are ideal customers are, you know, who we should target out in the market and really kind of transitioning from maybe a smaller chop shop that does more, you know, patio furniture, smaller things to a much bigger business, to business.
[00:03:31:11 - 00:04:02:19]
You know, we've got some, you know, capabilities that at PCT, some very large ovens where we can do, you know, big things and really shifting our focus to targeting those types of customers, I think really was the genesis of it. The next part, though, is once you target, that is you got to deliver. And that's really where I think we've, we've shined over the last, you know, year and a half to two years is when you get those bigger customers, you know, who have higher expectations, higher, you know, things for quality that they need.
[00:04:02:21 - 00:04:20:08]
You've got to be able to deliver and meet those things. And so that's where I think, you know, Chad and my background on the operations side, bringing that experience to PCT. That's really what's allowed us to, to deliver for those customers. And once they see you can deliver, you know, then they just the floodgates open.
[00:04:20:10 - 00:04:39:19]
And it's kind of a flywheel from there where, you know, other customers, see, you know, who you're serving, and they're like, oh, if you're if you're able to deliver for customer A, you know, you can definitely deliver for us. And so it kind of just compounds on itself from there. Wow. I would agree. So a little, little backstory.
[00:04:39:20 - 00:05:03:06]
We're about five years into steelhead, right. And we started with one of our very first customers was a powder coating shop in Mankato, Minnesota. And then we've evolved a little bit past powder coating. You know, we do like plating, anodizing, painting a lot of metal finishing, heat treating type parts. And now we've gotten some fabrication customers as well because they say like, hey, we actually powder coat and we assemble and we weld.
[00:05:03:08 - 00:05:23:19]
So we've grown a little bit, but by and large, our customer base is growing around 17% annually. It's like around 300 and, you know, a little over 300 customers, which is good. I think it beats the average economy by a significant margin, but it's not beating powder coating tech. You guys actually are on the top end there.
[00:05:23:21 - 00:05:49:18]
And the interesting thing is our customers are growing fast and they don't have like a CRM or we don't have like marketing really in, in the steel platform. We don't have like campaigns. It's like it's literally growth. By I mean, powder coating is a service business, right? And just like out delivering the competition is like the primary vector for growth that it is actually mostly.
[00:05:49:22 - 00:06:08:16]
I mean, yes, you have to have a fair price and you have to do what you say on the, you know, sales and production. You have to be in lockstep. But on the delivery side specifically, Adam, if we could dig in a little bit there. And I like the idea. Ideal customer profile. You know who's going to, like, who needs our equipment more than anybody or our service more than anybody.
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And then, you know, having sales be, you know, in lockstep with production, even on terms of like, getting the right type of work in the door that we can actually deliver. Well. But digging into the delivery side, what does he see? What do you like? There's expectations. There's quality. There's on time delivery. How do you think about what great delivery looks like in the powder coating in the metal finishing in the job shop world when it's so unpredictable.
[00:06:36:12 - 00:06:57:18]
Hour by hour, day by day. I think the two things that I look at is the quality of the actual finish. You know, like, that's the first thing customers are going to see is, you know, they're not seeing blemishes, they're not seeing defects. And so, you know, utilizing the knowledge that we have in-house, to make sure that we always deliver that first.
[00:06:57:19 - 00:07:24:07]
You know, when I talk about quality, that's the first part. There's a second part of quality. That is just how we interact with the customer in terms of accuracy. You know, do we receive in and send out the same amount of parts for the customer? You know, do we package them correctly? Do we package them securely so that when the customer receives that back from us, it looks professional and it gives them kind of that confidence that, you know, we're handling their stuff well.
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And I think the third thing is lead time. How fast are we turning around the parts for the customer? And, you know, all of those three things that I just mentioned is what we use steelhead for. You know, prior to to Chad bringing steelhead on to city. Everything was was paper and spreadsheets at best. And now we fully utilize steelhead to track all of those different things, whether it's, you know, rework and sending stuff back through tracking.
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How long does it take? Having a schedule so that we can give a customer an accurate estimate of what our lead time is, and when we can turn their parts around for them. There's there's still a lot of meat on the bone within steelhead in terms of, you know, capabilities and things that we want to utilize more as we grow.
[00:08:08:22 - 00:08:25:24]
But those are really the three that you know, me as the head of operations that I look at when it comes to quality for the customer. Got it. And just to go into that a little deeper too, as far as the quality you mentioned finish, you mentioned packaging like how how it appears and it hits there receiving DACA on the customer.
[00:08:26:00 - 00:08:44:22]
Like that first impression of the parts. And the actual part quality is pretty critical. And then the delivery. But on the on the finish side and the rework side. Have you guys been have you been looking at the data inside of steelhead in terms of like, you know, what's who or what or what paints or what operators are causing the reworks?
[00:08:44:22 - 00:09:09:20]
And then what does that data, how is that impacted how you operate the business, like the the quality data itself? Yeah, we have and it's that's something also that there's a lot of meat left in the bone for us to do. We recently brought on the quality module in the last two months. And terms of like fully utilizing that, that's, that's still top of my plate to like, get us there.
[00:09:09:22 - 00:09:29:22]
We are we are big data folks. And I think that I can talk more on on the lead time side for how we still have in the data, the data piece of it. Right now it's just tracking. So if I have a piece that needs to get reworked, you know, prior, you would kind of just send it to the back of the shop and start over again and not necessarily track where it's at.
[00:09:30:00 - 00:09:56:11]
Now we're utilizing the, you know, the quality module in steelhead, working together with your team to kind of build that recipe or that workflow within the system so we can send it back in a much more, you know, official manner. Right. Like within the system, we're utilizing that so that I am building up the database, you know, right now, like we don't have a lot of rework, fortunately, you know, knock on wood, because we've got good, good painters and folks out there.
[00:09:56:13 - 00:10:15:01]
But, you know, over time, as we build that up, we're going to be able to see see trends. You know, we were working on a problem set a couple of weeks ago where on a particular color, we kept seeing marks. And we probably wouldn't have noticed that if we hadn't pulled up. You know, here's our list of reworks in steelhead.
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Oh, they all happen to be a certain color. You know, and ended up not being anything with that color, but it was just an interesting data point for us to look at. You know, we went down and research that color and we researched the supplier, the batch number. All those ended up being being okay. But those are things that we're well positioned to do in the future as we grow that data set on the quality side.
[00:10:35:01 - 00:10:53:04]
Yep. Yep. That makes sense. And then on the lead time side, I was at a trade show once in Fab Tech fab Tech in Georgia. Atlanta, Georgia is years ago and we were talking to a lot of fab shops there. Not not surprisingly, and a lot of them were looking at in housing, their powder coating in housing, their metal finishing.
[00:10:53:06 - 00:11:13:20]
I think two thirds of them said, hey, we're here to, you know, in-house, our in-house, our metal finishing. And then one third of saying, oh yeah, we outsource it to the to the job shops. And I asked him like why in the world would you. There's metal finishers powder coated. Especially in like, every city in America right now.
[00:11:13:20 - 00:11:34:20]
Why in the world would you ever in-house it? The number one reason was lead time. The number two reason was quality. So like that, that is the one thing of like, if you want to keep the work right like that, in a way, the biggest competitor is actually your customer in-house in their work. So to keep the work, you got to deliver on time and it's got to be good quality.
[00:11:34:20 - 00:11:53:16]
That just has to be the price was that was the third reason. So like price is not the top concern. If the lead time and quality are, strong. So on the lead time specifically Adam, how do you work with I mean, you got lead time is the hardest thing to maintain when you're growing. If you're if you're going to flap, flap flat, it's pretty easy.
[00:11:53:16 - 00:12:20:10]
It's repeatable. It's standard. It's dead. Right. A standard lead time because there's. But when you're growing your rate. It is a how in the world you keep up on lead times. And when you have such hypergrowth. Yeah. It's I mean, that's that's the million dollar question. So that's really where we do use data to track our performance and track what we, what we have on the floor.
[00:12:20:12 - 00:12:48:09]
You know, we get a large variety of jobs. Whether it's one very large part, you know, or 5000 smaller parts. And those look, you know, very different in the system. And like the lead times on those are very different. So how do you account for, for that? One of the things I do is I use steelhead every day and I use it for the, the Watchtower function, which basically gives me a readout of every part that I have in the system.
[00:12:48:11 - 00:13:09:16]
What stage at that? And I, you know, dump that CSV into a pivot table every day and just do some quick analysis on, you know, what is my backlog look like? I also use the reporting function to figure out how many parts per booth I paint every day. What's the average number of parts per cart that we paint every day?
[00:13:09:22 - 00:13:30:16]
You know, and when I build these, pull these data sets on a daily basis, that really allows me to understand, okay, you know, this customer might have run in a huge order with 10,000 parts, but they're small. I can look at some of that other data and say, this might take me X number of days versus a, you know, one part that's big, that's going to take up my oven for a longer time.
[00:13:30:18 - 00:13:49:04]
But utilizing that data to see what my trends are, how long stuff is taking me allows me to go to our sales team and our sales call, say, hey, this is what we have on the floor. We're looking at, you know, a three day lead time right now. If we bring on a new customer or we're talking with a new customer, we can be transparent with them.
[00:13:49:09 - 00:14:10:01]
We can make decisions internally to say this is a strategic customer for us. We're going to prioritize it. And it also drives our our hiring decisions. Right. Like we've got kind of some internal guidance and guidelines on how we want to keep our lead times under. And when we start seeing trends like where we're going to get over that, that's the trigger for us to hire and grow.
[00:14:10:03 - 00:14:28:02]
And that's really kind of the mode we're in right now. We've gone from one shift to two shifts. We're hiring for a third shift right now. And it's, you know, that's the scary part when you're like, hey, I need to I'm going to hire shifts and I'm going to make this investment into these people in this equipment.
[00:14:28:04 - 00:14:44:06]
How long is how long am I going to have that work for? You know, it's, you know, you got to cross that bridge and jump with two feet. And, you know, having that data allows us to be comfortable with making that decision to say, hey, we've we've had this backlog, we've had these lead times, you know, for a long enough time.
[00:14:44:06 - 00:15:06:11]
And our projections in the future, you know, show that we're going to continue to have that, okay. We're at the right spot. We're ready to grow. Let's let's make that leap of that investment. Yep. Yep. And that obviously has to. It's a lot of back and forth with sales and and yourself to figure out like hey, is this is this a flash in the pan or is this customer staying or is this a real, you know, durable continuous volume?
[00:15:06:11 - 00:15:26:15]
And I think when you have those so we've never seen like that custom patio work ever really scale. It is the more commercial repeat type customers that you can really build on a great business upon. So just because you can land them and the work keeps coming and you can add and then you don't, you know, don't you don't lose.
[00:15:26:17 - 00:15:53:24]
You know, when Jimmy gets his new patio side, he's not gone. He's, you know, they're coming back week after week after week. So that's smart to go after those customers. And now when you're modeling your lead time, I agree with you. Parts are extremely variable, especially in batch powder. The parts are hyper variable. So probably not the best predictor of, backlog, but cards is probably a little more stable.
[00:15:53:24 - 00:16:17:07]
Would you say like cards per day is like, and is everything kind of generally priced off? How many carts it's going to take up the on the pricing side? I mean, it's an factor, right? Like it's something that inputs into it. You know, we look at, you know, all the prep that goes into a part that we expect, you know, is there surface prep or pre work that needs to happen?
[00:16:17:09 - 00:16:37:00]
You know, if it's large parts that are going to take up some of our smaller assets, I'm going to say smaller like, we have fewer of them. Like how many carts can hold this piece? You know, the timing of and that it's going to take the opportunity cost of doing the part. Like those are all inputs that definitely, you know, we consider when we price a product.
[00:16:37:02 - 00:17:01:14]
Got it. And that's that's great. So like Adam, I'd say there's like from what I see from my, my vantage point is that most people like what you just said here isn't exactly rocket science in terms of like, hey, you know, like we have a, a certain amount we can get done per day, right? We're going to reduce it down to these variables, parts racks, surface area.
[00:17:01:15 - 00:17:28:18]
Right. And then we have there's, there's a backlog. We have a turn time. Like everybody knows the lead time lower. It means more sales. Right. Longer means less sales and less happy customers. Right. And then the quality. Now the the biggest variable I see is like, not in the actual intellectual science of powder coating. Like the like, you know, like the, the specific gravity of the coating and the electronically charged and the spray distance.
[00:17:28:19 - 00:17:57:08]
Like that seems to be pretty stable. Shop to shop to shop. The the best practices or principles of lead time quality reworks. Customer service. Everyone seems to understand what that is. It seems like the biggest variable I see from shop to shop is how well the operators can fall in line with the leaders of vision. Like do the do the operators actually believe and buy into turn?
[00:17:57:09 - 00:18:21:15]
Time is everything. And do the operators buy into the quality and the operators buy into, you know, tracking the parts in and out while the operators, you know, like believe in that. Like, do the operators believe the same belief as the leadership or the ownership? And then when? So it's a beautiful outcome for the business for for the customers.
[00:18:21:16 - 00:18:39:06]
Like everybody wins. And then I see some poor poorer operators, like they can't get their operators, get the leadership, operations, leadership. They can't get their operators like to buy in and to use the system and like, say, hey, we want to like, we want to set a record here. We want to get improved. We want to, you know, grow.
[00:18:39:07 - 00:19:06:02]
We want to, you know, double, triple, quadruple the business. So what have you found from your maybe military or from your Amazon background? Like, how do you get your operators to buy into what you believe is the right way to run the business? Yeah, it's a great question. And again, I think that's a key to our success with with Chad and I both have an extensive, I would say, people leadership experience from from the Army.
[00:19:06:04 - 00:19:27:18]
Amazon as well. But, you know, we both kind of grew up and had our first real like management leadership army. And from there, you always start with taking care of two people. If you take care of your people, they're going to want to work there. They're going to want to work hard for you. You know, I think we always come to the table with the, you know, the assumption that folks are good and they want to work hard.
[00:19:27:18 - 00:19:47:01]
And it's up to us as leaders to to put them in the right spot to do that. So I think if you start from that, that mindset, you're already ahead of the game. And they're going to be much more open to listening to your vision and believing your vision, being willing to try it. I think the second part of that is you got to get on the ground and do it with them.
[00:19:47:03 - 00:20:05:09]
And, you know, again, that's a that's an army ism from Chad and I of we're never going to ask our guys to do something that we wouldn't do. So, you know, this weekend I was out there on the floor sanding with guys. Any any new product that we are not product, any new process that we roll out.
[00:20:05:11 - 00:20:20:06]
I'm always going to, you know, test it on my own on the side before I even bring it to the guys. When I do bring it to the guys, I want their input on it. Hey, this is what I want to do. Right. And I've only been in the powder coating business for a little bit. These guys have decades of it here.
[00:20:20:08 - 00:20:40:10]
And so if you're not getting there by in first to say, hey, you know, what are your ideas? You know, if we're going to if we're going to implement this new process, you know, what do you see what's important to you? Getting their input up front gives them a personal stake in the game, and they want to see their ideas realized as well.
[00:20:40:12 - 00:20:55:02]
And then once you've gone through that process, you've got to test it and you've got to be out there to see if it works. And if it if it doesn't work, you've got to be quick to pull it back and say, okay, I we tried this. It didn't work. I'm going to go fix it before we, we try it again.
[00:20:55:04 - 00:21:13:01]
You know, and your team will probably laugh because I'm, I want to say I'm hard on the steelhead team, but when, when things don't work within steelhead the way that I want them to, you know, I'm on the phone at 5:30 a.m. calling your support team, saying, hey, I just rolled out this new process. It didn't work the way I expected it.
[00:21:13:03 - 00:21:29:20]
I can speak to it well, because I was out there, like on the floor with the guys when we rolled it out, and I. And I know exactly like, what needs to change or happen. And so when they see that, like, they see that their leaders are really trying to bring them a good product that makes their their jobs easier.
[00:21:29:22 - 00:21:55:04]
That's where you make your money with it. You know, you need to be able to show them why we're doing something right. If I'm going to add a step to your job, what's the value? And so I go back to again, like the Watchtower function in steelhead where, you know, a lot of times guys on a certain, you know, part of the of our process that they've got a part in front of them, but they can't find it in steelhead.
[00:21:55:06 - 00:22:08:16]
And I just showed them, hey, look at this Watchtower function. You can search the part in here and it will show you everything. And like, you're going to find it, and, you know, like that, like, clicks on, I'm like, oh, okay. Like this. Just, you know, how many times have I been trying to find a part within steelhead?
[00:22:08:18 - 00:22:25:18]
I've got the physical part in front of me. I can't find it in the computer. It's super frustrating. Cool. We just solved that problem and we showed them how this makes their job easier. You know, before we joined, like, oftentimes we had we would we would bring in an order, we'd get it all prepped and realized we didn't have the power for it.
[00:22:25:19 - 00:22:44:10]
Right. It was a special a special order. Hey, let's build an audit within steelhead where we can look at, you know, again, let's go to Watchtower. Let's see everything that we haven't received in yet. Let's see what the powder is. Let's verify that against our inventory. Okay. You know, now we can understand on a daily basis new orders that come in that we don't have powder for.
[00:22:44:15 - 00:23:03:19]
We can put them in a different process to make sure that we get that powder ordered before we start working it on the floor. Right. And showing them that of like again, hey, we're we're implementing processes that are going to make your job easier. We're bringing you along to to be a part of it with us. And then once we have a good product in place, a process in place, there you go.
[00:23:03:20 - 00:23:23:13]
Give them the free rein to go out there and try and make it better. And when they bring you suggestions to say, hey, this is great. What if it did this as well? Cool. Let me call steelhead right now. You know, like that's a great idea. Or hey, let's think about this and sit down. But you know, if if they have the ability to make their own changes and have that buy in.
[00:23:23:15 - 00:23:41:09]
That's where you bring along the vision. Like they almost, you know, they don't even know that they're doing it. If you treat your folks the right way and bring them along with you. Yeah. Adam. That's a that's beautiful, actually. Unbelievable. So, like, just reiterate, take care of the people. Trust them. Right. Like, they're going to be good people and work hard.
[00:23:41:11 - 00:23:59:20]
Lead from the front. Not like, like up into my tower. Like, hey, go stack the bricks. Right. You're out there with them, showing them a better way to to do the work. And then test it first ask for their feedback. So, like, they're actually a part of it, and it's not even like, a it's not even like a leader.
[00:23:59:21 - 00:24:19:05]
Like, you know, there's so much like, books and slide decks out there on leadership, but like, it's actually real. Like like your background is not powder coating, right? And you come in here and you can lead a team and have a transformative outcome not being a quote unquote powder coating, you know, 30 year wizard, but more or less like trusting the team.
[00:24:19:06 - 00:24:41:02]
They trust you. And it actually it actually prints unbelievable results. And then I think owning things when they don't work like, hey hand up. You know, I tried this. It didn't work, right. Eat, eat, eat the sandwich. And then, and then the why. I think the why is often under underutilized as well in terms of like, here's like here's why.
[00:24:41:04 - 00:24:58:24]
Like we have to do this change X, and not just because Adam thinks it's a great idea from his. You know, I agree, tower. It's because like here's why. Because your downstream operator doesn't need. They need to know where the parts are. Or we need to know that we're making money on this job, or we need to know, you know, where we're losing on rework.
[00:24:59:00 - 00:25:28:10]
Like, whatever the reason is explaining that. And then I think people feel valued like, hey, this is like, Adam values my opinion. That's why he's explaining things to me, because he thinks I'll have maybe good feedback on how to improve it if I understand the context of the change. So, yeah. That's unbelievable. And now on the hard on steelhead side, I've often noticed, actually, our best customers are extremely hard on us.
[00:25:28:12 - 00:25:50:16]
And then they're also in turn, harder on their people to, like, they hold us steelhead accountable, to, you know, to doing it the right way. And then they hold their team accountable to doing it the right way. And those actually other customers that have the best outcomes, frankly, it's like have steelhead, the leadership, the operations team, everybody's, you know, in lockstep.
[00:25:50:16 - 00:26:13:11]
And then it actually works. So I actually love when love when you said that you're you're hard on the steelhead team. On the people side specifically, how do you. I saw you guys are hiring on LinkedIn. How do you hire like, what do you look for? I know you guys are currently staffing for Chad mentioned, mostly like on the operations or operator side.
[00:26:13:13 - 00:26:31:05]
What do you look for in a great operator? And maybe how do you how do you sell powder coating technologies to them? Yeah. You know, it's it's a team fit thing, right? You know, I think there's some basic stuff that we're always going to want. Like, can you show up on time? You know, are you reliable? You know, do you have integrity?
[00:26:31:11 - 00:26:49:12]
You know, like, we're going to ask them for some level of self-reflection to say, like, hey, everyone makes mistakes, but like, do you own it? Are you are you coachable? Are you teachable? You know, do you tell the truth when, when something does go wrong? You know, those are things like, that's just the ticket to the game, right?
[00:26:49:13 - 00:27:06:20]
Like, you need that to get into the into the stadium to see how you play. And then we'll take them out and we show them the process and we introduce them to the team, you know, see how they how they would fit there. Because, you know, we've got some guys who've been coding for, you know, almost 30 years who are super talented.
[00:27:07:00 - 00:27:26:16]
And we're also building our bench of everyone else so that we can have more powder coders so that they can grow their skills and grow within within PCT. But we're looking for folks who kind of have that, you know, that mentality of, hey, I want to come here. You know, I'm willing to learn. I'm open to to being a part of a team.
[00:27:26:18 - 00:27:46:20]
And a lot of that's just kind of, you know, feel like you take them out, you show them the process. See how they they react with it. You know, ask them good, deep questions about their background to get to know them and see how they react in different situations. And then when they, when they show up, I think, you know, again, it's trusting in people and seeing the good in them.
[00:27:46:20 - 00:28:01:05]
But, you know, my responsibility as a leader is I need to give that person a good onboarding. I need to make sure that they understand, hey, this is how PCT works. This is our culture. This you know, we're going to teach you all these things, but I'm not just going to throw you to the wolves and then be upset when you don't.
[00:28:01:10 - 00:28:19:02]
You don't know what to do. You know, we're going to bring you on the right way. Get you the right training. Help you through things. You know, the first thing I do with folks is I sit down with them for an hour and go through steelhead and say, here's what a Po is. That comes from our customer, and here's where you can find it and steal it.
[00:28:19:03 - 00:28:42:15]
Here's what the sales order is. Here's what a work order is. Here's what a work board is, because everything that they're going to do on the floor is going to be in steelhead. You know, they can't do that in steelhead. We've either got to teach them or we've got to find somewhere for them. But giving them that basis of, you know, if you're out there, most guys are going to know how to wash and move stuff around or drive a forklift.
[00:28:42:17 - 00:29:06:08]
But if they're not, they don't see how that fits into steelhead, which is what runs our business. They can get pretty lost. You know, like if someone doesn't explain steelhead to you and you just kind of, like, open a computer and you're trying to figure it out, like it can be a little overwhelming. And so, you know, I that is my job as the leader is to make sure they have a soft landing here and that they someone shows them how to do it.
[00:29:06:08 - 00:29:39:24]
And they are armed with the tools to succeed from day one. Awesome. And now, Adam, I know we're coming up on time here, but two last questions. One of them is, in your time here, I think it's been a roughly a coming up on a year with with PCT. What's been the proudest moment for you, whether it's either a change you implemented or some team even working on, or an operator specifically like if you could reflect on your on your time here, what's your proudest moment of like?
[00:29:40:00 - 00:30:08:23]
Man, that was hard. But man, we pulled it off. At PCT. Yeah. I'm always going to go back to to people accomplishments. And so we've got a younger guy that we hired. And he, he didn't fully understand why. Having, like, steelhead matched the real world was important. Super hard worker, a really good kid, but he was kind of just going as fast as he could.
[00:30:08:24 - 00:30:31:07]
Throwing parts on racks, pushing him downstream. And a couple times, like, you know, it really kind of gummed up our operation because we'd have multiple carts that were, you know, didn't match steelhead and we'd have to stop, you know, hit pause, make sure that everything was correct from a quality standpoint before we move forward. And, you know, we did some root cause analysis to figure out.
[00:30:31:09 - 00:30:51:00]
It was it was an operator error that he just wrecked the wrong part. And it's not easy. You know, like there are you guys know better than anyone different variations of parts that look the exact same. You know, they've got these really long part numbers that might be only off by 1 or 2 digits. And so you've got to have a lot of attention to detail to get that right.
[00:30:51:02 - 00:31:15:09]
And so, you know, I worked with them and work with them. And the moment was after a while, like he actually caught something that I had missed. I had entered in using the AI function of steelhead. And the AI kind of does what AI doesn't sometimes, and it made the best decision that it could, but it very slightly changed the name of a part number that I didn't catch when I was doing my checks.
[00:31:15:14 - 00:31:30:06]
And this kid came up to me as he was trying to rack the parts later that day and was like, hey, this doesn't make sense that the names are off. And I, you know, that dealt with them and we dug in together and was like, oh, you're right. And I put this order and it was AI. And I didn't catch this like, great job.
[00:31:30:07 - 00:31:49:24]
You know, you just saved, you know, all these processes or all these, you know, pinch points downrange, you know, all these different things that could have happened. You know, three weeks ago, you know, I was kind of reading either I act because you were racking stuff wrong and you just, you know, caught one of my mistakes, which is great to see, you know, like, we're a team and we're there to to back up.
[00:31:50:01 - 00:32:08:06]
But that was really kind of, you know, like, really proud moment of like, hey, man, like, you caught my mistake and I'm going to own it, and now I'm going to go back to steal and be like, hey, AI changed this part number. What? You know, let's get this fixed. Right? And from, you know, the youngest kid on our team that was struggling with steelhead a month before.
[00:32:08:08 - 00:32:25:13]
Caught a pretty complex error, which was really fun to see. Wow. That's pretty cool when you have, like, the turnaround story of, like, I think a lot of times the culture is like what you celebrate and what you reward. Like, you know, you didn't try to hide your mistake under the rug. It's like, hey. Great job. You know, you found this could have been a massive rework.
[00:32:25:13 - 00:32:54:03]
Expensive. Could have lost a customer. Extremely expensive. Right. So instead, we caught the fix way upstream, which is a beautiful, beautiful story. Adam, last question here. What about the future? So obviously AI order entry is a new feature. And steelhead apparently had an error there. It is getting much more reliable. And then I guess in the in the era of AI, in all the data center work that's going on there, you guys mentioned you're adding the third shift.
[00:32:54:06 - 00:33:17:05]
Like, what's your top, top priority for the next 12, 24, 36 months at PCT? Like is there any like are you shooting for any anything specific as far as like you know, you're taking all your, you know, mental energy to like go towards a certain goal or is there any big achievement you have in your head for what success looks like for you and PCT?
[00:33:17:07 - 00:33:41:11]
Yeah. So we you know, we just went from 1 to 2 shifts and we're we're expanding the three here shortly. And that's a big step for us. The the concern, the concern, the thing that I'm focused on is how do we scale across from one shift to two to the the three. Right. Because then the bigger you get, I it becomes harder for me to go individually and make sure each shift is doing the right thing.
[00:33:41:11 - 00:34:03:22]
So how are we setting up systems that are going to scale across all of those things? We're currently in the process of getting AMA certified. You know, we've we've done all of our testing and send it off. It's currently getting getting tested. And so we're, we're, you know, in that process. And we're going to start small of like, hey, we're going to have one shift that, you know, we're going to start with and make sure they run it really, really well.
[00:34:03:23 - 00:34:26:18]
And then how do we scale that across all the other shifts using using steelhead. I've been we just got the specs function kind of up and running on on the amateur part, but there's just a whole bunch more that we can do with specs within steelhead to help us scale across these different shifts. You know, like as there's different parts that need a certain thing or a certain color that needs to be baked at a certain temperature.
[00:34:26:24 - 00:34:52:11]
You know, there's my head is just full of ideas of how I can use that spec function to to help us maintain that quality as we grow across the different shifts. So, you know, our big thing is, as we get these different certifications, different certifications that allow us to serve new customer markets, we can't lose our, you know, our true value of, again, having good quality and short lead times for the customer.
[00:34:52:13 - 00:35:10:12]
And we're we're not going to go too fast and Russian a failure. You know, like if it's a certification, we're going to start on one shift and it's not going to go to the other shifts until we know that, you know, we've tested internally and they can do it the right way. And again, using steelhead and the different functions in there to help us do that.
[00:35:10:14 - 00:35:27:24]
Awesome. Oh, Adam. That's that's, that's that's easy to say. Hard to do. Right. Scale preserves the culture of the quality, the everything you've done on one shift and then triple it, but no longer like you can't be there for three shifts in a day or in, in a week. So, yeah. Best of luck to you and the company.
[00:35:28:00 - 00:35:45:08]
Steelhead will be here stride for stride with you guys. And I think you and Chad should be very proud of being the fastest growing company on steelhead. And I think there's going to be probably 350, maybe 400 companies coming for that title next year. But best of luck with everything at oh, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
[00:35:45:09 - 00:35:51:07]
We love working with you guys. Awesome. All right. Have a great day. Thank you. Take care. See ya.
Taxonomy tags
Industry
Powder Coating; Metal Finishing; Manufacturing; Job Shops; B2B Manufacturing Services
Feature/module
Watchtower; Reporting; Quality Management; Rework Tracking; Workboards; Specs; AI Order Entry; Inventory Visibility; Scheduling
Workflow category
Receiving; Order Entry; Powder Inventory; Surface Preparation; Racking; Powder Coating; Quality; Rework; Packaging; Shipping; Scheduling; Hiring; Training
Use case
Managing hypergrowth; lead-time management; capacity planning; operator adoption; rework tracking; quality improvement; shift expansion; powder inventory planning; onboarding; process standardization
Theme
Growth; Leadership; Quality; Lead Time; Data; Operator Buy-In; Scaling; Culture; Continuous Improvement; Customer Experience
Stage of journey
Advocacy