[Mark]
Hello. Marc Rydzy. I own Pauway Corporation, Rayco Metal Finishing, and Connecticut Laser and Engraving in Connecticut. Pauway is a paint and powder coating facility. Rayco is a electroplating metal finisher. And Connecticut Laser and Engraving is a part marking company.

[Natalie]
Hey there. I'm Natalie Hurd. I own Champion Powder Coating in Gastonia, North Carolina. It's right outside Charlotte. Uh, we have a, uh, we do powder coating. Uh, we have an automated 1,100-foot conveyor line and a batch side, three powder booths, uh, two ovens. We do a lot of large parts up to 30 feet.

[Cody]
Hi there. I'm Cody Whitehead. I'm the operations manager for Advanced Precision Anodizing over in Oregon. Uh, we specialize in Type II, Type III anodize, chem film, masking, laser marking, and media blasting. And really, our niche is, is really hitting all of those departments. Uh, for every customer, it seems to be like that. And that area is really the struggle point, is getting something through chem film, masking, and anodize within a reasonable lead time.

[Chet]
Awesome. So we have, uh, a pretty wide variety here in terms of, uh, services offered, uh, coast-to-coast, different roles and responsibilities within the company. Um, so I guess, Marc, we'll, we'll start with you since you're, you're the first here. As users of the portal and RFQ, uh, how have you used those critical features or functionality to compete and win?

[Mark]
One of the biggest selling points of Steelhead for me was the customer portal. Um, I know that the immediate feedback I've gotten from all of my customers has all been positive. You know, they, they love the transparency of it. Prior, you know, the number of phone calls that we would receive for, you know, "Oh, hey, I lost a packing slip. Can you send me a copy?" Or, "Hey, um, I can't find this cert. Can you send me a copy? Send me a copy of the invoice." You know, what have you. Now it's all, "Go to the portal." You know, phone call after phone call, you know, "What's the status of my job? Where are my parts?" "Hey, go to the portal." So that part of it has freed up the office staff to be able, or, or to be able to focus on other things instead of just answering routine phone calls, uh, that, you know, come in every hour. Then the RFQ part, or portal, or module, um, has been great for me in particular. With having multiple businesses, we get a lot of our RFQs from our websites and through email. Um, for me, you know, I manage seven active email accounts. Being able to forward those email RFQs directly into Steelhead and having not only the drawings there or any other attachments, but also having the email thread, having the contact information, and being able to generate the quote right from a single point without having to, you know, go back into Outlook, find the email. Okay, here's the attachment. Download that, look at that. Then go back into the, the quoting software, create the quote. Uh, being able to do that from a single source has not only allowed me to be more organized, but to turn around quotes faster, which, you know, ultimately, is w- again what the customer wants. Or, you know, it's a... I think they were saying earlier, nine times out of 10, the first quote in is the one that ends up landing the job. So, those two aspects of Steelhead have really, really kind of revolutionized the way we have been processing our orders and our job and interacting with customers.

[Chet]
Uh, that's incredible, Marc. Natalie or, or Cody, w- maybe outside of portal and RFQ, how have you used Steelhead to revolutionize the customer service aspects of, of your business?

[Natalie]
I think from, um, like promptness to respond, having information at your fingertips, things that you might have to wait and look up and, and call them back on, being able to just look up whatever it might be. Like, "Oh, we want to expedite something through," or, "Do you... Are you running this color?" Um, whatever it might be, you know, just having the information there. And you don't need to walk around 40,000 square feet to find whatever they're looking for. Just the responsiveness, um, has been huge.

[Chet]
Awesome. Cody, anything to, to add to those two points from a customer service perspective?

[Cody]
Yeah, I'd tie onto that same thing. Um, getting a phone call, jumping on to Steelhead and being able to say, "Hey, look, your parts are in racking. We'll go figure out what's going on," or, "Here's a rough timeline. We're still ready to hit your due date." Or, "Hey, these parts are in inspection. I know you want to come pick them up in the hour." Um, "Oh, hey, this operator's also been working on this for 35 minutes. It's probably on his pack. Go ahead, head over. It'll be ready for you in our shipping department in an hour." The response time that you can get to your customer... I mean, in the industry and what I hear from our customers is, you can never get ahold of anybody. You never know where your parts are. And if you can solve those two things, really, the job just, just start flowing in. Um, and that just takes a little bit before someone leaves one company, joins another, another machine shop is now at your avenue and hitting, hitting parts on your door. And you just never know what relationships those turn into. But being able to give information on where a part is, what process it's in, uh, within just a few seconds on the phone, there's... It's hard to compete with that.

[Chet]
Cody, I agree. Uh, having that granular reproduction tracking is game-changing.

[Chet]
Uh, what would you say it's enabled outside of customer service, and what does the future hold, um, for APA with that granular production tracking?

[Cody]
Uh, man, it's, it's been a year of really understanding, what do we want Steelhead to do for us? Um, so the more we, we dive into the many offerings, so we probably still only utilize 25% of Steelhead, getting a game plan of, of how we want to move forward. The limits on some of our control systems that we run in the background, but we want to tie into Steelhead, um, to make auditing just streamless, um...... I think there's a huge amount of possibilities. Uh, I really don't see any huge flaws in, in the next coming six to 12 months for us and what we, we're trying to achieve. And I think there's some things that we will be able to do shortly that nobody else will be able to.

[Chet]
That's exciting. Can you speak to any, uh, or tie in that production tracking to any specific business results, uh, if you're able to share?

[Cody]
I don't have anything just hard-written. I'm, I'm more finicky when it comes to data. Like, I like to know that data is true, so. But I can tell you, just having the data that's available, we found a customer that, um, has scaled over the last really 18 months from going to 400 parts a month to now they're doing about 30,000 parts a month. They're, uh, just had a $200 million acquisition. Um, staying ahead of them, I definitely could not have done that without Steelhead. The data that was available to me, where I can see where there are parts, so I can see how many part- what kind of volume's running up in sho- uh, in our shopping machines, what kind of colors are now hitting. Um, I was way a- well ahead of them, um, before they ever knew it was coming. Um, and then that transitioned with their private equity group that came in. They're like, "Hey, we want more visibility." And it was just easy to turn around, be like, "What would you like to see?" They list off, "Hey, I want to know if it's in racking. I want to know if it's in QC. I want to know if it's in laser. I want to know when I'm getting my parts." I'm like, "Oh, here's the portal. What else would you like?" And it just kind of, the tone of the conversation shifted, and I was like, "Okay, once again, we're ahead of you guys. We're prepared for your growth. Uh, we're here to be partners." And that just really, again, just sets us apart.

[Chet]
Oh, that's remarkable. Natalie, you, you touched a little bit on visibility from a customer service perspective. Visibility is one of the core outcomes that we seek to unlock and achieve with, with our customers. How has that, uh, visibility impacted you personally or in the role that you serve?

[Natalie]
Yeah. I mean, we bought the shop a year and a half ago, and it was a mom and pop shop on paper. And what's in the shop? Who knows, right? Like, you couldn't find where anything was. Everything would take so much time, and there was no way that I was getting involved with any organization where I didn't have data, I couldn't see what was going on. And just the act of putting sales orders, getting the purchase orders in, putting it in the system. Great. Flows through the process, and then what's ready to ship, right? And from that, getting to print out labels onto my palettes that are wrapped up, ready to go, if this is exactly what's on this palette, I'm putting this palette on the truck. I mean, the amount of time we save just from those two processes from the get-go. And having that visibility into what we have, I mean, Watchtower, best feature ever. Like, I didn't- wasn't expecting that, and I'm in that every single day-

[Natalie]
... being able to see where things are at, filter, search based on different parameters. I mean, it's huge. And then lastly, visibility of what I'm quoting and special instructions going in there. It used to be, oh, we're gonna need a package a, a certain way, or I'm gonna need to prep it-

[Natalie]
... or plug it a certain way, and I need to remember to manually write that down if, if we ever get that order in. I quote it, I put it on the part number, it's gonna print on our job locators, it's gonna be in Steelhead when they need to process those parts, whether or not I knew they were coming. Um, and that's been huge, that visibility top-down for the team actually doing the work. They have all the information they need to be successful the first time.

[Chet]
That's amazing. Uh, I would say visibility is probably synonymous with Watchtower, uh, and that's how that came to be. So, awesome. Uh, Marc, you, I, I know you, uh, super heavy user of RFQ and, um, the portal. What was ... And that's why you said you purchased and, and signed up with Steelhead and we partnered. Um, what's been one unexpected thing about Steelhead that's enabled you to, to compete and win?

[Mark]
The plating company I purchased two, two and a half years ago, again, it was a, it was a mom and pop plating shop, uh, 70 years in business, small company. You know, 15 employees with, uh, the majority of them being long-term employees. Uh, all master tradesmen at what they did. However, you know, they were running QuickBooks and that was it. They had no process control documents. They had no procedures. So all the operators had tons of tribal knowledge. And, you know, my background is sprayable coatings. So getting into electroplating, I was a little bit out of my element, where, you know, my operators knew significantly more about the process than I did. Having Steelhead and having the ability to upload photos and videos, I was able to capture all of the processes that each of these trade- you know, master tradesmen were doing it. And not only being able to develop the process and the procedure, but then to use those as training aids for new employees. And instead of having just a set of written instructions, it was, "Here, watch this." And then here was, you know, Joe, who has been doing this for 35 years, walking through every step in the process. And they're able to either, you know, watch a one to two-minute video, or they're able to, you know, look at photos of, you know, each tank, each rack, each hook. And for me, being able to capture, you know, that experience and that knowledge has been paramount.

[Chet]
Have you hired anyone new and had- put them through that process as a test?

[Mark]
Uh, we have at Rayco. Yeah, we had a- I had a new guy, uh, started about three months ago. And kind of like with all, all my guys, you know, they come in, they're, you know, bottom of the totem pole per se, doing either, you know, packaging or racking. But as he's progressed now and started moving into either assisting with the tank operators or running some of the smaller lines on himself, um, absolutely. I, I've gone and been like, "Watch this." And, you know, we use a mentoring program a lot with training, so he's paired up. But prior to that, it was, you know, those were part of his training requirements was...You know, understand the specs that you're working to, understand the process. Okay, here's a visual presentation of the process, the steps that we go through, and, you know, the transition for him was seamless. And I think that was because of the preparation that was done leading up to him actually being released to operate.

[Chet]
Yeah, tribal knowledge, uh, certainly can be looked at as a liability, especially when that person with 30 years is no longer with the company. Now what? Big black hole. Uh, Natalie or Cody, anything unexpected from your experience thus far with Steelhead?

[Natalie]
Yeah, I would say my initial driver of implementing Steelhead was specifically digitizing. Bringing everything in more from a operational standpoint of what I was gonna manage, my team was gonna manage on day-to-day basis. The result has been we get new customers walking through the door, and they are so impressed by our system. They love seeing that they see everything's documented. They have the color. They see the special instructions. They see how we package it, how we put the labels. That type of service, I wasn't expecting that to be such a selling point-

[Natalie]
... because that isn't frankly the intention that I was, um, going into it with. And even when we've had vendors come in and do audits and stuff, like, they're just like, "Oh, wow. You've- well, this is great. Where do we go? Oh, you have it here? Oh, wow." Like, they're just so impressed, and that was unexpected and- and really great.

[Chet]
Uh, Cody, anything, uh, unexpected from the APA?

[Cody]
Uh, that actually kind of ties into that same thing. The amount of response I've got from customers when we do- when we do walkthroughs of just not having paperwork on the floor. You know, all of our drawings are digital or available on a file share. Um, being able to recall any of their parts at any moment if they needed to, um, see which purchase orders we have. Everybody's just kind of blown away by the fact that you don't have paper travelers out on the floor. You don't have something that can go missing, or you don't ha- you're not relying on a guy that's been racking parts for 10 years to remember what they sent you six months ago. But you know you get that same part every six months. And if you had- or had turnover, um, you just get away from on the job training. There's so many tools available for a new person to walk in and follow up on what somebody might have been doing for 10 years and be able to just seamlessly follow them as long as the instructions are written. Uh, and that's gone a huge, huge distance for a lot of our customers. And it's gotten our foot in the door with a lot of aerospace comp- companies. It's allowed us to kind of get some deviations away from NADCAP and do some pretty critical work.

[Chet]
I kind of asked Natalie this earlier, but Marc or Cody, personally, your- your jobs, have they changed at all? We heard from Dina, uh, earlier, last- yesterday, adding a lot of responsibility because she was able to get back a lot of time back in her schedule. Um, how have your roles changed with Steelhead?

[Cody]
I mean, my role's changed dramatically. I used to spend six hours of my day tracking down paperwork, looking for parts, making sure the documentation's correctly- correct, or the team can't find a part, so I'm gonna run out there and I'm just gonna go verify that we- I'm not gonna make a phone call to a customer because one of my team members said, "I don't know where this is. I'm gonna go quickly just do a double check." I don't do hardly any of that anymore. And- and we've scaled so much further than back in those days where we had 30 people, and it was easy around 10, 12,000 square feet. Now we have 22,000 square feet and don't need to run around the shop. Um, so it's saved me an immense amount of time and saved me time in figuring out rework travelers, what's causing our rework, being able to diagnose what's really going on. Uh, so my- I mean, my role's dramatically changed in the sense of that I can't imagine at the scale that we are today trying to do this out of QuickBooks like we used to. It just- there's no way.

[Chet]
And I'm- I'm sure it's safe to assume I'm not using too fat of a crayon to draw that to competing and winning that time save with Cody.

[Cody]
Yeah, yeah. No, it's definitely been a- been a winner for us. Our- probably since we launched in 2023, we've almost doubled our revenue, so...

[Chet]
That's incredible. Marc, anything from- from you?

[Mark]
You know, the consolidation of data, of having it in a singular source of- we went all in with Steelhead, so, you know, we got rid of Quick- you know, any of our accounting software, you know, went with the Native Accounting. So for me, having everything in a singular s- source or a singular spot where I can go in and not only see, you know, work orders and sales orders, but to be able to see bills and invoices and just see labor hours, um, and just to have the amount of data that Steelhead produces in a, you know, an organized environment where I can pick through it and filter it the way I want to filter it, to try to get to where I want to get to or see what I want to see has been very enlightening to me, um, and much easier. Whereas before, you know, either switching back and forth between different softwares or, you know, even

[Mark]
going from my office to, you know, the AP office or the AR office and getting different ports. Now everything, you know, everything is on everyone's screen per se, or everything's in single source, so it doesn't- I don't have to go take a walk to go get some information. I have it there. And, you know, with the RFQs again, you know, having them consolidate- consolidated into a- a single source or a single spot has freed up time, and time is money, so, you know, the- the quicker you can get through those, you know, I can spend my time doing, you know, either pursuing new revenue streams or entertaining new customers or researching new markets.

[Chet]
Well, yeah, yeah, Mark, that access to data, uh, and not only going from your office to AR or AP, um, for you specifically, h- how far apart are your plants?

[Chet]
Rayco to Pauway.

[Mark]
Oh, Rayco to Pauway. Um...

[Chet]
In running two enterprises, how has the access to data-

[Mark]
Oh, that part is great.

[Mark]
I mean, the- the two- my two facilities are 16 miles apart, um, probably about a 20, 25-minute drive, which isn't horrible. But having the- the flexibility of having web-based software whether I'm in Middletown, you know, I can-I can either quote or answer a customer question about my facility in Wallingford or vice versa. Um, as well as if I'm at home. You know, it, it gives me the... Or here, you know? It's, it gives you the flexibility to have access to your entire system, access to all of your data anywhere there's a web connection. And having that flexibility is, you know, allows you to be in two places at once, per se.

[Chet]
Awesome. Uh, Natalie, you talked a little bit about new customers coming in and seeing, blown away by the, the digital nature of Champion Powder Co. What has the experience been like for your existing customers in terms of competing and winning as a business?

[Natalie]
Oh, it's been great. We... So right before, right after we took over, we, we sent an email to all our customers, and, um, there was one customer in particular that had dropped all work with the previous owners. And, and when they invited us back in to have some conversations, we told them about the changes we were going to make, the software we were gonna implement, um, our turnaround time in quoting, our consistency in quoting. And we brought that customer back on, and they're one of our top five customers.

[Natalie]
You know, just the changes we've been able to see, it's like a very clear change of we mean what we say. Like, we're making changes, we're progressing, we're moving into this century. Um, and it's been extremely positive. Um, we're not heavily using the customer portal quite yet, um, mostly because we want to use it as an opportunity to touch our other customers we haven't gotten in front of-

[Natalie]
... to have that same conversation of, "Look at us now. Look at these changes we're making." Um, but for the ones that are in the customer portal, I mean, they love it, right? They get the pack list there. They see their quotes. It just makes everything so much easier with those conversations. And, you know, you make these little changes over time and you see that progress, you can only assume other things are progressing that well internally as well. So it's just been very positive.

[Chet]
Yeah. Perception is reality.

[Chet]
Is a, a real, real thing, for sure.

[Mark]
Yeah. And I, you know, it also gives customers some peace of mind and more confidence in, in doing business with you when they see you reinvesting back into your own company. You know, that you're, that you're not just pulling money out, but that you're putting money back into it, and

[Mark]
that, you know, you're, you're making improvements to help with transparency, to help with accountability, um, and you're doing things to strengthen that relationship. It definitely gives you an advantage over, you know, competitors who aren't taking those same kind of proactive measures to, you know, s- solidify those relationships.

[Chet]
Cody, anything from the sales front from APA? Uh, I know that's not your, your area of expertise, but anything that Steelhead's enabled from that front?

[Cody]
I think, again, kinda just as customers come in, you have, uh, you have, you have a resource that a lot of our competitors don't. Um, we also just have, you know, from a sales side, you know, we- we've kind of grown inherently just by word of mouth. But again, you get someone who might be using a, a vendor that's four or five times the size of us, and so there's always a concern, um, when you come to a shop that you, you may view as smaller, you may view as not having capacity. And, and us having the tools to say, "Okay, well, what are you looking for? What time frames are you looking for this in? Um, and by the way, here's, here's where I'm coming up with these numbers. Here's what that capacity may look like for you. Are you interested in continuing to work?" And, and that gets our foot in the door, and that's 90% of the battle, right? We- you get that conversation going, it's usually easy to pull the customer in. It's usually easy to get a trial run. Um, and then you, you just obviously have to do your part from there. But really, the battle is just getting your foot in the door. Uh, and again, right, I mean, from shop tours, I mean, a lot of people want to come do a shop tour. They want to look around. No one's actually there to guarantee you any business, but they want to see what your team's doing behind the scenes, right?

[Cody]
And so, it just... The shop is clean. There's no paperwork on the floor. We have all the information that you're gonna want us to. That, that's an easy sale.

[Chet]
Have you gone through any customer audits?

[Cody]
Uh, we have, several of them. Um, we've gone through some aerospace audits to get on ASLs. We've gone through some customers who are, like we just did one two weeks ago and got good feedback, and should have some trial parts here shortly. But they're an ADKAP supplier only. Um, they're just struggling in our area to find vendors that can keep up with the volume. They came through. Um, they were really happy with what they saw, the traceability that we have. Really the, at this point, the only thing we're missing is immersion time trai- uh, traceability, but that'll come very shortly. So, uh, we just get good feedback, and, and we have a good control system in the background running all the data, so that's also very helpful. But that's one part of the equation. Steelhead has been the completing, or, you know, completed the other part of the equation for us.

[Chet]
Any, uh, any memorable reactions from customers as they're walking through the plant and they see the technology? Uh, I'm hoping you've had to pick a few jaws up off the floor, but...

[Cody]
I, I think the common thing that I get that always surprises me, because I've, I've kind of just grown up in a plating shop, is everyone's just like, "Wow, this place is really clean." Um, and that's usually the jaw-dropper, uh, for people. And I'm like, "Huh, it's a little rusty, but, you know, it, it's better than some other places I've seen. It's better than some, you know, other photos that might have been presented here, um, initially." Then we go, "Hey, this is an old shop that's 30 years old. This is what it looks like when you don't take care of it." Um, so that's usually the big driver. But again, part of the cleanliness, for us, Steelhead just not having paperwork everywhere, that's been a big game changer to us. We have labels out on everything. We got tags. People can scan it. You know which job it is. You know which work order it goes to. You know which customer it is. Uh, you don't have a lack of visibility on that part that's over on that shelf, and that- that's really the, the key thing that I think Steelhead lets someone from, you know, 10 feet away really recognize, "Okay, yes, you do know what you're doing."

[Chet]
Awesome. Uh, I wanna ask, uh, like what's next

[Chet]
... Each of you in the next three months? Uh, what areas of the business are you gonna dive into as like the next lever for growth, as Andrew puts it, for competing and winning?

[Natalie]
Introducing the rest of, a lot of the modules we haven't done with Steelhead yet. So specifically, inventory management. Uh, we want to introduce the QMS as well as the specs.Um, and actually getting to utilize the features that are already there to help with decision-making. And maintenance. Maintenance along with inventory for things like filters and things that take three months to get. You know, just making sure we have stuff on hand ready to go. Um, we just need time and space in order to implement things effectively. So, in the short term, being able to finish out some of those rollouts, um, of those, those additional modules.

[Chet]
We're here to support. Marc, Cody, any

[Chet]
big areas to focus on in the next three months?

[Cody]
Might be a little further than three months, but, uh, we got a 32 hank, uh, hoist line ordered and ready to go. So, I'm excited to finally get some scanning capabilities up and running. We've already kind of beta tested it with Steelhead, so I'm excited for that to get here, uh, implement some more controls, and kind of see where that takes us. But it should be very fun.

[Chet]
Uh, what's driving that sort of investment, that decision?

[Cody]
Capacity. I mean, we're... We try to keep our lead times around two weeks, but I have customers that'll wait two, three, four, or five weeks, um, for multiple processes. And so we really want to drive these lead times down. Um, and the only way we're gonna do that now is tank time. So, we run two shifts, uh, five days a week. Right now we got a graveyard running as well temporarily just to help out, help out. But there's, there's a need, so it's time to go after that and continue to serve our customers and get our foot in the door with some other larger vendors.

[Chet]
Congratulations on the growth. Mark, any big plans for this year?

[Mark]
Um, you know, since we're new to Steelhead this year, um, and haven't really completed a, you know, a full business cycle or a full business year, I'm looking forward to using the data to determine what our next steps are gonna be, what our next capital investments are gonna be, what areas do I need to focus on, what areas am I focusing on too much, or spending too much money on. That's probably the number one on my list, is, is looking forward to populating the system with enough data and then being able to analyze that and make the decisions based off of what we've gathered.

[Chet]
Data. Data's king. Putting yourself in a position to compete and win is, is not easy. Um, and it takes a lot of leadership, it takes involvement, it takes a, a full team effort, not just one individual that we have here. What's worked well for getting the rest of your team to, to march to the orders, fall in line, and, and get on board?

[Mark]
With anything in business, it has to be that, you know, that top-down mentality. And you can ask for buy-in, and, you know, you can hope for buy-in, but, you know, it's, it's ultimately the, the culture that you set. I mean, prior to us deploying, we had several, like, town hall style meetings with the entire company, just letting them know, "Hey, this is the direction that we're going in. This is what the company is investing in." You know, asking them to, you know, trust management that-

[Mark]
... this is gonna be the best thing for us and for them long term. Because obviously, you know, if the company does well, then they're gonna do well. So, having those meetings prior to deployment, just kind of letting them know, "Hey, this is where we're going. This is why we're doing what we're doing." Once we

[Mark]
finally got to that step, you know, they had been hearing about it for months in advance, so they were, they were ready and they were eager. And, you know, after years of dealing with paper and pencil, now they get to play with their fancy new iPads. So, you know, a little bit of, you know, pride in themselves and feeling a little bit, not more important, but just, you know, "Oh, hey, you know, we're, we're stepping up in the world." You know? "We're, we're going from clipboards to iPads." It's, you know, it's a big deal. So, they take pride in that and, and they're proud about that. And, you know, that's reflected through the company. And, you know, the... Even during customer visits, you know, they come in and, you know, they see people walking around with iPads. It's like, "Hang on, this is a paint shop." And it's like, "It's our new system. We're, you know, we're all digital." And it, the same thing with the, you know, the labels and the QR codes. They're like, "Oh, what's that, and what's this?" All... Had a lot of conversations about Steelhead just from customers' curiosity. So, it's been good.

[Chet]
Natalie, Cody, anything to add? Or any questions from the, the floor?

[Audience]
I got a question for Cody. Uh, I wanted to let, congratulate you on the new line that you plan on getting. Uh-

[Cody]
Thank you.

[Audience]
One question, uh, w- what you mentioned with this addition of capacity, you seem pretty confident in, um, your current capacity of what you have. I'm curious how you came about this kno- came about this knowledge, and what your confidence is in, uh, that value. Like, are you full- fully utilizing your, your current equipment to its maximum potential?

[Cody]
Yeah, I mean, for... I have a lot of controls running around the background that really tells me all my operating parameters, how long each, each bath is being utilized. And so we're still running two shifts. We work up quite a bit of weekends just because we cannot keep up with the amount of work that's coming in. Um, we still have a significant demand from our top 10 customers of, "When are you guys going AS9100? When are you guys going Nadcap? W- we have so much work, we need to send it to you guys." The demand is there. Getting forecasting from some of those customers as well to understand their needs prior to us building this line has been huge as well, 'cause there, there are customers we deal with that say, "I'd love for you guys to go Nadcap." "That's awesome. Do you guys do 500 bucks a month to go Nadcap work? Do you guys do-

[Cody]
... $1000 to go Nadcap work? What is that?" "Oh, well, I can't tell you." "Okay, well, you know, I'm not, not really gonna focus on, on your need at the moment." And then we have some of our top customers who are like, "Hey, this is our forecast. This is what we're currently doing. These are the contracts we're locked in for the next seven years. We need you guys get, to get there. We're struggling. We're shipping these parts that are, you know, 60 pounds down to California and then we're freighting them all the way back up here, and we're doing 80 of these a week. We need you guys to get Nadcap." It's like, "It saves our aerospace company money, saves us money. It's a win-win for everybody. When are you guys going to do that?" And so just understanding their needs and getting clarity from some of your larger customers, uh, has been huge for that. You know, confidence level, it's, it's always there, but you, you don't know what the next six months looks like, right? Uh, could be a downturn, there could be something that happens in the industry. But, you know, we're pretty well diverse in firearms, automotive, aerospace, um, you know, we're pretty, pretty bold and diverse in sporting goods. You know, typically when we see something taper off, something else picks right back up, and we've really never had that struggle. So, you know, I always like to say that the confidence level is there, but you, you truly just don't know. But it... The data that we have, i- i- it's looking like there's a pretty heavy forecast coming.

[Chet]
Excellent. [clapping] Well, thank you three.

[Chet]
Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Natalie. Thank you, Cody.