New Fabrication Technology for 2024 - TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Ken McLauchlan and Stephen Gosk of MetalForming. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the webinar!

Karen Edwards: Hello everyone and welcome to MetalTalk. My name is Karen Edwards and I'm really glad you're here today because we are going to be talking about new fabrication technology must haves for 2024, some new trends and why you should add them to your product offerings. A little housekeeping before we dive in, this is being recorded and it will be available on metalcoffeeshop.com within 24 hours. So, you can share this with your friends, colleagues or anyone else that you think needs to see this. So let's get started. Our topic for today is new fabrication technology for 2024. And I want to go ahead and welcome our guests and have them introduce themselves. Before I do that, I do want to say that the chat is open, so feel free to let us know where you're from, say hello to everybody and as we go along if you have questions, go ahead and drop those in that chat and we will get to them as soon as we can. So our first guest today is Chad. Chad, would you please introduce yourself?

Chad Rowe: I certainly will. So I'm Chad Rowe with Metal Forming. I started here in 1999 actually as a service technician with Squint over the last 13 years in sales specifically. And then really with a target focus on some of the newest technologies as those technologies are being implemented, such as software, such as remote servicing capabilities and then really giving a good foundation and understanding to the customers as to how those tools can be best used to help their businesses.

Karen Edwards: Thank you, Chad. You've been there doing this a long time, so I know you've seen a lot of changes over the years, so I'm excited to talk about some of these latest technologies with you. Our next guest is Ken McLauchlan. Ken, go ahead and introduce yourself please.

Ken McLauchlan: God morning, good afternoon. Ken McLauchlan, vice president of architectural sales for Metal Forming. Been in this wonderful industry for about 33 plus years. Spent a little bit of time on the contractor side, manufacturer side and recently came over to Metal Forming last year to take the role as vice president to help develop and further advance not only our portion of the industry but the industry in general. So we're excited to be part of this today. Thank you very much, Karen.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, such great experience and wisdom here on this panel today. I'm super excited. And Stephen Gosk, please introduce yourself.

Stephen Gosk: Hello everyone. My name is Steve Gosk. I am the president of Metal Forming. I've been here for about a year and a half. Came from outside this very incestuous industry, so I am certainly drinking from the proverbial fire hose, but fortunately for me we have people like Chad who have been with the company several years now and bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise in our space and have been able to attract others like Ken to join the company, to add to the team that we have here within Metal Forming as we try to take the organization to the next level.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. Welcome. Thank you all for being here today. I'm really excited to talk about these are the must haves that we're going to be talking about throughout this webinar today. And Stephen, talk to us a little bit about the Metal Forming difference that you guys bring to the table.

Stephen Gosk: Sure. So as a reseller, we can align with the best in class manufacturers, whether it's long folders, folders or roll formers and offer those key products to our customer base. As a reseller, we sit between the customer and the supplier. So one of the key roles that we do play is bringing that customer and market feedback to the suppliers, whether that's new technology or trends in the industry, really emphasize for them what they need to focus on and where they need to put things into their long-term product road maps to best serve the markets that we represent here and the things that have value for the customer or have value for the customer's customer to make them more successful or technologically address issues that are happening in the market like shortage in workforce or desired increased efficiency and productivity gains or just the type of products that the end customer's looking for. And so that's what we're going to talk about today is three different product offerings from our suppliers that we think just that for the customer and really adds value for them as they go to market to be successful.

Karen Edwards: Excellent, thank you. So let's dive in here and Ken, get us started with what is a parts manipulator?

Ken McLauchlan: So, parts manipulator is a way to move material through a sheet metal shop, usually through another break form or form of processing. So not trying to eliminate labor but trying to make labor more efficient. We see these being utilized with customers and customer base where they're having labor challenges and they're trying to figure out how do they make the process more efficient. And automation helps with this and it's not robotic, it's automation and allows a skilled technician to be able to do more work with the additional machinery. It's basically ran by the system. It feeds material in and out, gives you a little bit of labor savings, gives you a more safer environment and it's automated for the entire process.

Karen Edwards: Nice. Chad, I want you to talk a little bit more specifically about the Jorns and what it can do and why it matters.

Chad Rowe: Yeah, so Jorns has been a longstanding leader in the long folding industry in the marketplace. And over the years has really been the first to adopt new technologies and bringing those benefits to market. A lot of those basic technologies are really just requests from customers. When one customer asks for a solution, it's likely that there's more out there that are looking for that same thing. So with the Jorns long folding solutions and they're specifically speaking about the double bending is where customers really get the efficiency of manufacturing with the least amount of labor impact into that manufacturing process. Along with this parts manipulator, which is able to make this system a fully automated solution by taking a prepared flat sheet, load it into the double folder, move out of the way, allow the double folder to do its bending processes and then remove that finished good with the part manipulator and move it down off to a conveying solution for future or for that next process.

That next process may be packaging, for example. We have developed with several of our different customers. One of the key things with this Jorns parts manipulator is that it's a very flexible solution. There's no one right answer for all of the different requests that customers come up with. One customer may want to use this piece in manner A, somebody else may want to use it in a different manner. There are projects ongoing where somebody just wants to use this parts manipulator to remove the part away from the machine and they're going to stack it and take care of whatever that downstream process is.

There are other offerings where someone may want to use this parts manipulator, take that finished good and put it right into a packaging box and then move that packaging box along down the line. So that's one of the real key things with the Jorns parts manipulator and any of these solutions provided by of our preferred equipment that we represent here in North America is that it's really the flexibility to meet those customer's demands. We're not looking to provide, here's your one solution because that old adage, no one shoe fits everybody, it just doesn't happen. So that flexibility is really a key component to what this solution can provide.

Karen Edwards: Okay. So you talked a little bit about how it's used product flow, process improvement, moving it into its own package. Tell us a little bit about who is going to be using this? Is it going to be a contractor installing metal? Is it going to be a manufacturer?

Chad Rowe: Commonly, the most interest is going to be someone who is truly either a fabricator or in that major manufacturing market. It's typically not going to be the generalized roofing contractor. However, there are solutions and there is flexibility so that if somebody really needs that, they can have it. It's very common in that manufacturing process or in these major manufacturers where we're trying to help them increase their productivity and one of those ways is to have a consistent flow of a piece going through their manufacturing process. That's one of these key components with utilizing CNC type controlled equipment. Having that automation of the double bending by itself is a big win simply because a piece takes 37 seconds to make, it's always going to take 37 seconds to make.

There's another factor that goes into this once we start adding in these other layers of CNC controlled access, like a parts manipulator. Safety is a huge concern in every manufacturing facility and in every place. It's the times that we're in, the skilled trades are diminishing. People are not getting that same type of education that they did 30 years ago, so we have to take care about their safety as well, the people that are coming into the workforce. Well, this is one of the ways that we can also help improve that as well as increase that productivity and process flow for that manufacturing facility.

Karen Edwards: And I'm sure quality plays a role because you're going to have that consistent quality every time, right?

Chad Rowe: Yeah, absolutely. Consistency, accuracy, all of these components are key benefits.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. All right.

Chad Rowe: Ken look like he wanted to add something.

Ken McLauchlan: I was sitting there thinking because part of this, our industry, everybody's looking for efficiency in how to do it and one of the pushes used to be for robotics, and not that robotics is a bad thing, but robotics is a big scary word when people hear that because they hear robotics and they think I have to have a programmer. And some of the, I think evolution of this equipment has allowed it now to be simply trained and Chad hit on a key point of this being CNC driven. So the literally training of this process can be done with a pendant beside the machine that you can teach virtually anyone to learn how to utilize it. So it's not this next level that, yeah, I'm losing technical people, but now I have to go find a computer programmer. It's I'm taking really qualified people that I have already and I'm allowing them to be more efficient with technology. So I think that's a key point Chad hit on a little bit that I think is really important to add as well.

Karen Edwards: How do you guys support that learning curve and helping them make that transition to teaching the person the new scale?

Stephen Gosk: For us here, one of the key elements of doing just that is our demo room show room where we can have customers come in and actually see their part run, train them on their machine, show them exactly what's going to be required once the machine gets them as far as supporting it, and then through the install, the startup process that we go through and the training process we do during that period of time is also a critical element. For me, I think the best question that this team asks is, what do you doing with the equipment not only today, but what do you want to do with it five years from now? And that usually starts a dialogue as to whether or not this is a good fit for that particular customer depending on where they're going. And beyond that on this slide and with the process improvement, there's equipment upstream from this feeding into the machine that also can be linked in through software and planning software that makes it efficient as well. So there's other products in this flow that can add to this same dialogue though they're not Jorns specific.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. I love what you said there is what does the customer want to do with it and where do they want to go? Because sometimes somebody just wants to make a sale and I'm going to sell this machine, but it might not be the right thing for the customer. So that you guys ask those questions and take that into consideration, I think is very impressive.

Ken McLauchlan: The philosophy of our company and our sales organization is very much educational. We want to bring value to the situation, educate the customer and then let the customer make a decision what's best based on their business, and then format a solution to that. That is the ideal goal in the end for us. And the showroom, our training staff that goes out to the site, our call-in staff that's available when people call in that they need tech support, whether it's on the phone or whether they're linking into their systems, all of that's available and it's a whole big envelope that's been built around the machine process.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. Okay, so that's parts manipulation or manipulators I should say. The next hot topic here is conical bending machinery. Chad, why don't you start us off here with what is it?

Chad Rowe: So, I mean that's a great question and really what is conical bending is a wonderful lead in. And depending on who you ask, you're going to get five, six different answers as to what conical bending is. Recently we were doing a training here at Metal Forming provided by our vendors and then also we had a couple of key customers come in and they continued to say, "Well, conical bending, that's not what this is. This is tapering, this is tapering." So there is a, That is a great discussion point as to what is conical bending versus what is tapering and how do those two really blend together. So to answer that question, there are several different types of tapering solutions that then can be linked together to provide a complete conical bending solution.

So new for this year, Schechtl has come out with their all new CNC controlled conical bending and all of these tools that we've talked about and Steve mentioned it and I'm going to pick up back on it because I had made a note here before we were starting that, all of these things really have to be driven through software and the whole key with software is making it easy to use. Everybody has lots of different software programs and the ones you gravitate to are the ones that are easy to use. So that's one of the key things that Schechtl really focused on is how do we get the information from that contractor or from that fabricator and put it into this machine tool to get out what I want in a very easy format?

So with this conical bending or tapering solution we talked about, there are a lot of different possibilities and combinations that you can do with this. One of those methods is simply I want to nest or I want two pieces of the same profile to overlap. Common component in the industry is a coping cap or some people know it as a parapet cap and those two pieces being able to overlap or to nest together. How is it done today? Typically, there's several different ways, but the accuracy and the repeatability being provided now being able to use a CNC controlled solution allows for an ease of application as well as consistency of that same profile.

Then there's a different type of tapering where it's really more of an aesthetic look to it. Everybody is gravitating to these wonderful designs that are now possible that people thought some years ago were just a pipe dream and okay, we can draw it, but how do we fabricate that? And either you didn't do it or Ken speak to you, spent hours and hours laying out jobs to do what this crazy architect had come up with. So that's one of these big beautiful things with the CNC, but then also utilizing the software in today's technologies to make it easy for the dreamers to create something and make it a reality. And that's what Schechtl has provided us with a complete solution that takes it from the beginning to the end and makes it easy to use. Ken, I'll let you jump in if you like some of your experiences.

Ken McLauchlan: Yeah, so I want to stress this conical bending isn't new. The process and the ability to put in equipment that's cost effective for most of the contractors to be able to afford is the new process. So we used to taper stuff by hand by just dotting and marking it out and laying it out, and it was a truly cross-person type application, whether they were tapered roof panels or dormer panels or caps or flashings or different architectural applications that Chad had discussed. So it's been there and it was truly a mathematical question. Well, the new solutions that we have, take the mathematical part off of the piece of paper and put it into a CNC system that you can lay it out to the exact parameters you want. And whether it's tapered like Chad said from one piece to another, or whether it's tapered from one point to another or it's tapered in an application that's visual, that is all there.

And in today's world, we have it available in both the Jorns product and the Schechtl product and a couple of other lines that we have as well. So it's available both those. And the next question that we run into all the time is, okay, great, I bought something from you guys three years ago and I heard about this conical thing and I'm excited and I want it, can I do it? In a lot applications, yes. So some of it's retrofittable back to other machines. We have to do a little bit of research and have some discussions in order to do that, but those are definitely discussions we're ready to have as well and allows you to take, maybe you're not ready for the new machine, but you want to see whether this is something you want to add to your existing machine or available to have that option and then install that option and train on that option as well.

Karen Edwards: What does this mean in terms of time savings in creating these things that the crazy architect designed, right?

Ken McLauchlan: This is the big number and anybody that's watching this knows where I'm going to go with this. It goes really deep. It's not hard to put a 10 foot piece on a wall when it's measured right. It's hard to put two 10 foot pieces together or two 12 foot pieces together. That's where the time on how... And there's a lot of different ways to apply these flashings together through smacking the details and different things and different regional requirements. But all of them require basically working those two pieces of material together and that's where the time is. And anything you can do in a shop where it's a controlled environment is a lot better than on a job site where you've got a bunch of different things that could be from height to exposure to wind to height to other trades, and when you can just literally lay these out and put one piece next to the next piece and keep going, it is just a dramatic increase.

Some people that we've had discussions with have said they've had eight time production improvements. That's a big number to really look at. But when they talk about it, they also say the biggest thing is they don't have people calling back saying, "I have something that doesn't look right." And it might just been the way the wall was when you put the two pieces together, but you had to manipulate the sheet metal to make it go onto it. When they're conical or tapered that they can go together from piece to piece, now you have a lot cleaner joint.

Chad Rowe: I'm going to add to that, and I'm going to show my age a little bit here. In the early 2000s, the conversation came up a lot where people were first transitioning from using a handbrake to the CNC folding machine and we talked about the, okay, you're seven times more productive and you have one person in your shop. But really at the end of the day, it really became the consistency and the accuracy and the repeatability of that part as equally as important as, okay, you're more productive, less labor. And that's what we're doing again with the CNC conical tapering solution. It's that consistency and the repeatability that all of these pieces are going to be the same. Ken's a really good fabricator right here.

Ken McLauchlan: No Ken's not

Chad Rowe: Ken's not anymore.

Ken McLauchlan: No, Ken's not anymore.

Karen Edwards: The machine is.

Ken McLauchlan: And this application's everything from flashing for flat roofs to shingles to you start talking about tapered spire roofs, you can do this where you're nesting longer pieces together that you can't get onto and ship in a regular package. There's a lot of applications that can be used. It really comes down to efficiency. And I think Chad's 100% correct when he says about consistency. Everybody looks for differences and that's what people see. They see inconsistencies between two parts. When you could be consistent between two parts, it's hard for somebody to say that they're questioning something, but it's usually, I'm looking at this and I'm looking at that and they don't look the same. Why? And a lot of times where it's mechanically attached together, we're bonding two pieces together, making two 10-foot pieces into a 20-foot piece, which turns into a 300-foot piece and it's important to see how that goes together and how it's consistent.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk a little bit from the marketing perspective. We talk about somebody, if this is what they do, if they're a fabricator, how does being able to do this help them?

Ken McLauchlan: So, this right now, and I tell you, people that are grasping this are leading their markets. They've gone to their customer base and they're talking about all the same things we're discussing. How can I help you as your fabricator increase your production? How can I help you increase your efficiency and your profitability? Because all that comes together. And so from a fabrication contractor side, we're seeing people market that direction to their customer base saying this is what I can do. In the end, talking about the same thing again, consistency, increased production because you're putting down more because you're doing less work in the field and you're giving a better overall picture from end to end.

So that's the guy that's just fabricating for somebody every day, or the company's fabricating for somebody every day. The company that owns this equipment that's doing their own fabrication, they're having the same discussion with their customer. These are the investments we've made in our business to give you a superior product. And we see major manufacturers in both sheet metal and single-ply following these leads because they want that consistency. They want that repeatable product that the architect sees and likes aesthetically driven, but performance driven at the same thing because they've got a very consistent system.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. Makes sense, Chad?

Chad Rowe: Yeah, adding onto that. So I don't want to say that there's a 10 foot CNC folding machine on every street corner, but literally thousands of CNC folding machines that have been sold over the last 20 years. So what is that next thing? Or if I'm that fabricator and I'm producing for somebody else, or I'm producing for my own installation, how do I separate, how do I differentiate and how do I add value to what somebody is buying at the end? So again, that's just another differentiator, another way to add value to your customer base.

Karen Edwards: So, if you're still doing it by hand, your consistency and quality and aesthetics are not going to be up at the same standard as all those other thousands who have the machines and are doing it using this consistent process.

Stephen Gosk: And then when you add this to what they're doing with metals and what's being offered in the metals and just how they look now, so the offering and the design as well as the metals is really a win-win for everyone along the way because the attractiveness is just getting more and more out there in the marketplace and being able to do it with the right efficiency and consistent quality is a win all along.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, it's always about having the right tools and I think that having the right tools for this just make a lot of sense. So thank you guys. I want to move on to board and Batten machinery. This is something that I just keep hearing more and more about the board and batten. So Ken, why don't you get us started on this one?

Ken McLauchlan: Yeah, so this profile, and you'd hear it come up in a bunch of different places. Currently we're talking about in wall applications is where most of the buzz is. But originally you go back to standing Seamworld and they used to do what they call Batten panels for roofs that had two by twos that was done on historical applications. It's a very visual product where you have a large batten on a flat field of a roof. It gives you depth of design and the market loves it because it's different. It's not your standard standing scene. It's not just something that's similar to everything else. It is very unique. What's really changed in our industry is division seven products, thermal moisture protection in the specification. Everybody's always avoided the walls and it's never been something that they wanted to do. So this is giving people the opportunity to go and do the largest square footage on most projects, and people laugh about that, but the roofs are big, but the walls are usually more square footage.

And it gives you that same application with the same architect or homeowner or building designer that allows you to change the aesthetics, have one contractor looking after your entire division seven products, which is key. And it's hard enough to find a contractor now. So when you have to find multiples to try to do a project, it's very difficult. So this also from the contractor sense, it's allowing them to go back into their existing customer base and say, "We used to do this and this, but now we do this in addition to it." It's another product we can offer with the relationships that we have and support the growth of not only their business, but this customer relationship. So it's become very, very dramatic, but it's again, mostly what we're hearing right now, the big buzzword is all over vertical applications so wall panels. Chad, I see you buzzing.

Chad Rowe: Yeah. Well, I was just going to throw in there, look, if I can make money and add value for my customers with the application, I don't want to climb on the roof. I would much rather install it on a wall.

Karen Edwards: And then we've got a slide here on marketing, and this is kind of the new buzz I think with metal being on the walls. And you touched on that a little bit, Ken, but maybe talk a little bit more about that with some of the new looks that are coming out.

Ken McLauchlan: So, the board and batten is a profile that you run that's fairly static. You can change the width. The batten size state remains the same, but with all the new technology and film applications in the painted world, we're seeing everything from raw materials like copper and zincs being ran through this to painted materials being everything under the normal paint you'd see to print rollers that look like distressed wood or look like stone, it allows an entirely different aesthetic view.

The other thing that we've saw with this is horizontal applications where people have gone in and added different color to it to give depth of design and change the building look. So in history, you saw people do it in their corporate colors, but now you're seeing people say, "I'm going to add depth by changing color." The print rollers and a lot of our partners are doing these print rollers that look identical to wood, that you can't tell the difference when you're walking away, they're not having to reharvest wood. And at the same time, you're using a very highly recyclable product. So it's appealing to a customer. And everybody's on that green buzz right now still too, so.

Karen Edwards: Sure. Yeah, I mean, let's talk about that, the sustainability of it.

Chad Rowe: All right Karen, hang on. We have to paint a picture here. Okay?

Karen Edwards: Okay. Please.

Chad Rowe: So, you get to build your brand-new barn dominion because we're spending so much time online with you that you don't have time. So you have to have somebody build this thing for you. Imagine these wood grain, dark gray accents in board and batten all around your front porch, your entryway light. And then that same profile, but with the different width and maybe let's accent it with a light gray with black trim. So all with that same profile, but by changing the materials that we're using, changing the width of those panels and being able to go down to a very narrow eight inch panel all the way out to a 20, 24 inch wide panel, we can vary all of those looks with the same profile, with one profile.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Rowe: Beautiful picture. I want one.

Karen Edwards: You said barndominium.

Chad Rowe: I want one.

Karen Edwards: You want one, I know. They're pretty awesome to look at. Just Google that barndominium and you can see all the different styles and colors, and so it really opens up a whole world of options, I think. So that's really exciting and really cool. Very cool. All right, so we'll move on here to talk a little bit about evaluating need, the market demand. And Ken, you talk a little bit about this with additional business from customers you already have, right? Because you can go to them and say, "Look what I'm doing now."

Ken McLauchlan: Yeah. The hard thing with anything is how do you gain additional business? I mean, it's a challenge every business has, whether you're representing equipment or whether you're representing your company with a product to a customer base. And once you have an existing customer to sell those additional products to them is always easier. You have a path of least resistance. There's a lot less education in the process, and that seems to be the biggest demand that we're seeing with this and where people are saying, "I want to offer more products to my customer base. How do I do it? What is it? What's the next step?" In that market demand, I mean, it starts with a contractor having discussions, and this seems to be a weekly discussion that we have with our contractor basis. Even though I've never thought about doing that, I really need to reach out to a couple of my key guys and talk to them and see what they're doing. Because I know they're putting it on. That's where it goes.

And when you hear that, it's like, okay, well if you know they're putting it on, then where are they buying it from? They're buying it from somebody else. So you're losing out on business opportunity at that point. So I think that's the key thing with our customer base that we're dealing with. They've really stated this is important for them. They want to find areas for growth. How do they do that? A lot of it's them having discussions with their design community, whether it's architects or roof consultants or wall consultants, whether it's just the home builder that they do custom homes for that's looking for another alternative to board and batten siding to something else, to a wall application that they're frustrated, they haven't found something. So it starts with communication directly with that customer base that they have already. Chad, something else?

Chad Rowe: Well, yeah, Ken, you touched on it earlier too with if I'm the GC on this project, getting multiple different people to show up on time, to be able to have multiple different people that can do all of these different things. It's harder and harder and there is more and more focus on, oh, well you're here to do the metal roof. Can you do the siding as well? Can you do the trim? Can you do the flashing? So going back to that single point source, you can market yourself. You're in a much stronger position as to what your offerings are to a general contractor or to your subcontractors. Creating a plan, you've got creating a plan here. That's always a key step. And this is, again, we've touched on it a couple of times here. Metal Forming is here to help you and understand, use our years of experience. Don't try to walk the path by yourself.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, that's really important because you don't know what you don't know. And you guys have been doing this for a very long time, and you may be able to help identify obstacles or challenges or help guide that person in the direction that they need to go because you've been there, done that kind of thing.

Chad Rowe: Yeah, absolutely.

Karen Edwards: Let's talk about when to buy. You've been thinking about this, you've been talking about it. Maybe you've got a plan in place. When do you actually do it

Chad Rowe: Yesterday, Karen.

Karen Edwards: And why?

Chad Rowe: There's lots of different reasons. I'll start that ball. There's always a process or there should be a process looking out forward to looking at market trends. This is, specifically speaking, I'm just going to use the board and batten as an example, this is the piece that's been kind of trending over the last couple of years in this direction. So using that forward-thinking, and then when is that right time? And that's where our expertise is going to come into play. And that right time typically is going to be sooner than later. There are benefits as to doing something earlier than later. Sometimes it might not be the right fit. Each company's individual needs are different. Ken, I'll let you jump onto that as to when is the right time.

Ken McLauchlan: What you always see in this industry and in the contracting industry is the end of the year there's always a push. Right now we've got 179 that dropped down a little bit more in percentage this year that if you don't know about it, you should definitely have a discussion with your accountant about it so that they can explain it to you a little bit more. But it was basically allowing you to write investment in your business off against your taxable income. So it is a great opportunity to do it. That's still in effect this year. It'll drop again in January this year unless something changes. The other challenge that I always, and I said it when I was doing the contracting thing, I'm going to wait for that one big job. I got this one big job that's going to come in. If it comes in, I'm going to buy it.

And then usually what happens is that one big job comes in and the schedule drives the job and the schedule says you have to be on site in three weeks. And now that doesn't allow you to buy that equipment for that one big job. So now you're back to giving the margin that you would've realized back to the producer who's doing it. I think the key answer is, where's your business model going? What are you looking for? Are you looking to expand? Are you looking to stay ground zero? Are you looking to not do as much roof work and maybe you want to do more wall work, or I want to increase my business without changing my customer base and I want to bring more products to the market. So all that to me answers with when to buy is I need to look at the options and what it is. Sooner is better.

Lead time on products is always going to come into place. We saw a lot of demand for this with the board and batten and with these parts manipulators and different things because people want to see it, they want to experience. When they experience it, they're like, "Okay, I'm ready." And then some of these are long lead items things and some of them are relatively quick turns. So I think schedule's really important for everybody to discuss that, okay, where's your business going? What are you trying to accomplish? How do you want to do that? And then how does that fit in with what you're purchasing for your cat backs? And really look at that in depth. So I would agree with Chad, yesterday was the best day to order, but today will work as well. So yeah, today will work as well. But it is just about where your business is going and what you're trying to accomplish.

Karen Edwards: And I think that's why you create a plan, right?

Ken McLauchlan: Correct.

Karen Edwards: And I'm just curious, what is the timeline for if I decide, yep, today's the day I'm ready to do it, what does that look like from the time I decide to buy till I'm trained, till it's set up for me and I'm using it?

Ken McLauchlan: That's a great question. It's going to vary by-

Chad Rowe: Oh, I was going to let Steve take that. I was going to let Steve take that.

Ken McLauchlan: Yeah, that might be a Steve one. Actually, Steve, you haven't talked for a bit. Maybe this needs to-

Stephen Gosk: It depends. But honestly, it does depend. I mean, there's a variety of machines we're talking about here, and you could be talking about anything from 12 to 14 weeks out to 40 weeks depending on how custom it is and through the entire process of when you start to when you finish. So it does vary. One of the things that we do in our business is we constantly have orders in play with our suppliers. So we have machines coming our way that we intend to meet, at least the high percent of the applications our customers require that are on their way here, even though they're not sold yet. So we try to keep that funnel of activity coming in. So, it does depend a little bit, but with all this, and kind of back to the earlier comment, I mean, we live in a world that people want it when they want it, how they want it and at a competitive price.

And that's a little more prevalent here in the United States maybe than other places, but that's just the reality that we or anybody servicing this industry is up against. And these machines that everything we've talked about give you that level of flexibility so that hopefully when that next trend comes, you're going to be able to do it with these same machines just because of their capabilities and what they offer. And that's going to be, again, something that positions you not only for today, but what about five years from now. So then when you make this big investment, you spend the time and you wait for that machine to come. Once it's there, you have it in your arsenal and you can leverage it in your business going forward.

Karen Edwards: So, the manufacturers, as they're developing these machines and these solutions, they're probably always trying to think five years ahead or 10 years ahead.

Stephen Gosk: Sure.

Chad Rowe: The good ones are.

Ken McLauchlan: There's lots of people that are doing innovation. There's lots of people that are doing replication. And I think innovation is, you see these people are looking for a new process to go to market that what makes them different versus the, I hate to say it's the me too group that says, "Oh, Bob's got it. Now I need to have it so I can say, yeah, me too." And whether it's this profile, and I also challenge the people that are on this and the people that watch this, that if you have some idea and you're like, I think this is a great concept, that's where Board and batten came from. Like I said, it's not new. Somebody said, "I need to put it in a machine."

If you've got a profile or you've got something else you're thinking about, I mean, give us a call. Call and talk to Chad or I and tell us what you're thinking and we can take a look at it and talk about it. That's how some of the great ideas come out of the industry. So don't let that be something that slows you down. It's not exactly perfect. It's one of those things. So I think that's a big thing is innovators are driving the market, replicators are basically tugging along with it. So that's another big challenge in our industry.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, I like how you say, pick up the phone, call us, talk to us because you really are kind of a conduit back to the manufacturers that you represent. Not that they're not looking and listening and talking as well, but you're dealing with the end users and the folks who are interested in these machines and you're giving that valuable feedback to them to help them see what's coming and what the market demand is, correct?

Ken McLauchlan: Correct.

Chad Rowe: At times, Karen... Oh, sorry, Ken.

Ken McLauchlan: No, you're good.

Chad Rowe: At times there's even, there might be whatever, and the next thing, it's on the board and it's planned, but it's some months away as to when it should start. With this input, with this feedback, we can look at that and go, "Okay, hey, sorry, we can't wait some months. We have to have that moved up into that plan." The big thing, and Ken touched on it, we're all kind of touching on it, when to create a plan, when is the right time? Emails and phone calls are still free. If you're not sure, ask.

Karen Edwards: And you mentioned that you have a demo showroom at your facility, so folks are welcome to come in.

Stephen Gosk: Yeah, it's a unique thing I learned in this industry, whether it's trade shows or the value of a demo room, many people aren't usually buying these machines every single year or consistently. They buy them, they use them and then may reinvest several years later in their next version or next model required. So again, whether it's coming into a demo room or come to a trade show, people do come because they want to see what the latest technology out there in the industry is. They want to talk to experts, they want to see parts being run. And when you come into our demo room here, for example, we will literally run the customer's parts so they can see the quality of those parts, the time that those parts take the run and really see the benefit they're going to see from the machine itself. And that's pretty commonplace.

And they also see the family of machines up and downstream from the particular machine they might be interested in. So how they can add to their production process as well. So with that, in this world of machinery, people like to touch and feel it, see it, talk to experts. It's a major investment. And I don't care if you're a roofing contractor who's getting into fabrication, who's going to spend $300,000 to a major fabricator that's going to spend $3 million. It's a huge investment and we've got to respect that and understand what a big deal it is for these people making that choice and putting their faith in us. And when they come in here and see and touch the machine, I think that starts the process.

Karen Edwards: Sure, sure. I think about a car, I'm not going to... Well, although people do buy cars without seeing them nowadays, I guess on the internet, Chad, you did.

Chad Rowe: It was actually very seamless.

Karen Edwards: But yeah, like you said, it's an investment and just to see it make their part, I think that's a lot. And I've seen you guys at trade shows and seen the machines in action and it's always very impressive. And I know you always have a crowd of people standing around wanting to see it in action. So I think that's great.

Ken McLauchlan: And I was thinking about something else too, and Steve kind of hit on this, and Chad kind of brushed on it a bit, but two, I think the demo room's important for people to be able to come and touch and feel it. But then after they bought it, the one thing that we invested in last year is a full blown training room that we can bring people in so that when they make this investment and equipment, they can bring in their key people. We'll also come to them and do training, but when they want to send people in for refreshers, or if we're doing, we want to work with their sales team, we want to work with their tech teams, we can bring them in and do a full training in our facility as well with the equipment. And Chad does a great job of managing this program for us, but you'll spend a half a day in doing actual work looking at it on screen. You'll spend the afternoon actually on the machine experiencing what we've talked about.

So I think it's a great tool as well, because again, all this is becoming more technologically driven and people are like, "Oh, I'm nervous." Because all those special words, robotics, everything else and it's not that crazy to feel like that. You got to know that you have to have a partner in this that truly you trust that can help you walk through this path. And that's I think, truly what we've built as a group with the partners we have in machinery and the partners that we have in the contractor base, we become that filter in between the two that truly puts the two together and gets them up to speed.

Karen Edwards: I think that's so important too. You invest in this equipment, you get set up, you're going, something comes up three months later, you're still there. You're there to provide support, help whatever assistance they need, answer any questions. And that doesn't go away after the purchase is done, so that's huge.

Stephen Gosk: No, the age-old thing we say around here is sales gets the first order, service will get the next. And it's very, very true for this space. And yeah, I can tell you hands down, finding good service tax is one of the hardest rules to fill. There's people who want that lifestyle and are willing to do the traveling and put in those kind of hours. But we've got a great team of people and that has been the single area along with our sales team that we've added to in the last year and a half since I've been here to try to build out the support for the machines that we're selling into the market.

Karen Edwards: That's fantastic. All right, we have gone almost an hour, so I want to just put this slide up, open it up. If anybody does have any questions out there, feel free to drop them in the chat. I will say that Metal Forming does have a full directory on Roofers Coffee Shop and Metal Coffee Shop. It has information about the company, how to contact, how to get in touch. So feel free to reach out to them anytime. All righty. And I just want to say thank you to everyone for attending today. We hope that you learned something and found a few nuggets to take back and your business.

And if you are thinking about making this investment, reach out to Ken, to Chad or Steve. They can help you create that plan. They can talk to you, guide you and provide that support that you need. So I just want to thank everybody again for being here today. I invite you to join us each month for future episodes and please follow us on social media, subscribe to our content so that you don't miss a thing. And this will be on demand on our website within 24 hours. Thank you, Steve, Ken, Chad, it was wonderful to have you here today. Appreciate you sharing your wisdom and insight.

Chad Rowe: Thank you, Karen.

Ken McLauchlan: Thank you.

Karen Edwards: All right, take care everyone. Bye-bye.