Up next in 10
The freeze-drying industry is experiencing an exponential boom with many people starting a freeze-drying business out of their homes. Still, many of the processes are very labor-intensive which can hinder growth and create burnout before a business has the opportunity to thrive. In this video, we delve into the world of automation technology and discuss with the founder of EIS Automation how this technology can streamline freeze-drying processes, increase efficiency in multiple areas, and significantly boost profits when implemented.
If you don't have the time to watch the entire video, here are timestamps to various sections:
5:30 - How does standard automation align with the freeze-drying process?
7:51 - Is automation only for the big pocketbooks?
10:36 - Connecting the dots
14:58 - My real-world example of simple automation to free up time
17:37 - Common Indicators that you need to look at automating a process
19:04 - Debunking the misconception that automation is eliminating jobs
24:06 - An βAha Momentβ on the cost
28:50 - What does it look like to work with EIS or another automation company?
35:01 - Helping companies in the U.S. from Las Vegas
38:48 - Can you automate unwrapping candy?
Connect with Josh and his team about automation for your freeze-drying business below:
Main Office: 702-749-7488 | www.eisautomation.com
Sales Engineer to speak with is Sam Levine
The Frozen Assets Podcast series is all about exploring the world of the freeze-drying industry and hopefully inspiring you to achieve more in your business by looking at current entrepreneurs and companies in this growing industry. Full Playlist of Frozen Assets Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8uz0_2xUyEIGWHjImLMBkll8M0ykaama
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0:00
hey welcome back to another episode of the frozen assets podcast Series where we're focusing on entrepreneurship in
0:05
the freeze drying space specifically and today we're going to talk to Eis
0:10
automation this company is very agnostic with different products that they help
0:16
businesses scale their efficiencies in production and it made a lot of sense
0:21
for me to bring on Josh who's the owner of Eis because even though we're doing
0:27
freeze drying it's still a product that needs to be packaged there's a lot of us that have either grown a business to the
0:33
scale that we want it to or you're kind of stuck in this Middle Ground of like what is the next step for me I've got a
0:40
lot of demand for my product and I need to figure out ways to one maybe purchase
0:45
more freeze dryers I need to find a way to reduce my labor that I'm doing because it's very stressful so we're
0:51
going to talk about that with Josh today how does freeze drying apply to what he
0:57
does for his clients in automation Josh thanks for joining me on this podcast and and helping us better understand
1:04
automation for packaging products so I wanted have you introduce yourself and
1:09
tell us about what Eis does and why you started it and kind of dumb it down for
1:15
us of what you actually do for clients yeah thank you David um I'm Josh with e
1:20
automation uh I'm the founder of the business um we are in our 12th year I
1:27
founded a business in Las Vegas uh in the quintessential American fashion of
1:32
uh in the garage on the knees and now we are close to a for 15,000 feet facility
1:40
and over time our Focus has shifted to uh the automation World specifically a
1:46
sub segment of that that automation World which we call end ofline uh product handling and packaging that uh
1:52
can include um many different types of packaging it's not necessarily limited to food it could be any type of other
1:59
product what's more important for us is not so much what the product is but it's in a g
2:06
given size range so if we um package or handle a product it's not so matter
2:12
doesn't matter too much for us whether or not we package or handle a mouse or if it's freeze stried food as long as
2:18
within a given payload and size range then it's a good fit for us and we can bring value to the customer's table um
2:25
End of Line basically sometimes also referred as End of Line a second half of
2:31
line uh typically involves uh some sort of manipulation of the product that could be batching
2:37
stacking sorting weighing uh it gets packaged into a secondary container and
2:43
everything around that is what we specializ in oftentimes including robotics all the way down uh to the
2:49
palletizer bringing the product on a pallet I would think that you're using a lot of Robotics or what types of things
2:55
would I pay attention to if I was going to look up on videos and things like that what what is the actual machine or
3:01
things look like yeah it's a very good question and this is actually a very common topic um maybe to step back a
3:08
little bit um what's happening in the US right now is a little bit of a Revival of manufacturing so the United States
3:16
becomes the country again that manufactures products and and brings manufacturing back home from maybe
3:23
overseas and um so there's two types of customers new manufacturers that start a
3:28
product and then also customers who bring manufacturing activity back which is called Under the Umbrella
3:35
reshoring um when you are a smaller manufacturer um typically you start out
3:42
doing everything by hand and you're at a small scale so as you as you grow over time your volume goes up you you start
3:51
to sit sit down and think about how can I uh put out this larger volume in a
3:56
repeatable fashion right and and that's of course includes you just alluded to
4:01
it a big portion of that is what we call Touch Point reduction touch Point reduction is
4:08
especially uh important in the food industry where ideally you have as few
4:13
touch points human touch points as possible for the food to stay fresh and
4:18
also not get touched and contaminated in the process so when you have foods and
4:25
many other products too outside of the food industry typically you have two stages you have what is called a primary
4:31
packaging that is the actual product itself packaged maybe in a a bag a
4:37
pre-made bag or it is in a flow wrap package like you go to a grocery store
4:42
and you see a Snickers bar and it has three three fins or three seals the two seals at the end and a third seal on the
4:49
bottom that's called a flow wrapping product and the flow wrapper is Quint
4:54
essential primary packaging now when you distribute a product then often times
5:00
you distribute it in batches a larger amounts so you might have seen um in the
5:05
store that the individual snakers bars for example are inside a carton and that would be considered a a
5:12
secondary packaging process this is typically what we are involved in more sometimes we get involved into primary
5:19
packaging that means uh your freeze tried good would make it into a pre-made
5:24
bag for example and then many of these pre-made bags get then inserted into a carton for distribution purposes yeah
5:31
and when you're talking about different types of ways to do end of line or kind
5:36
of reduce the touch points I just thought of something you know when you're looking at a commercial grade freeze dryer which is most likely the
5:44
companies that are going to be paying attention to this podcast about you know you're looking to actually get out of
5:50
the home freeze dryer um at least you probably have close to a dozen of these
5:55
and you're looking at a commercial grade freeze dryer that has a larger footprint but can do more batches and um or more
6:03
product within one cycle time so I can kind of see it as like a lot of these commercial grade freeze dryers have
6:10
these large stacking racks but they come on Wheels out of the freeze dryer I
6:16
guess the the ways that to reduce that that touch point would be that you're going to roll those stands with all
6:23
those racks of freeze-dried product to a an area that has you know robotic arms
6:29
that kind of like dump the product out of those trays and then put them on an assembly line to get packag is that a
6:35
very layman term scenario yeah you could do that as a matter of fact it's very close to one of the ways you could do it
6:43
so the automation industry is you can think of there's two approaches you have
6:48
typically heavily standardized equipment that could serve many Industries so you
6:54
could say I have a feeding device that fills the bag and that is a standard p
6:59
of equipment but now you say we have freeze dried goods and they're almost
7:05
similar to maybe a baking sheet and you would like to automatically take the
7:11
sheet out and empty it into a bulk feeder for example right so this would be more of a custom project where you
7:18
would work with a robotics company where you say hey I have all these different uh racks on uh with casters and I would
7:25
like to bring them to X location and then have a robot pull each sheet empty
7:31
it for example into a hopper and then from that Hopper you have a feeder and a wire and automatically feed them into a
7:38
pre-made bag for example yeah while the pre-made bagging machine being a standard piece of equipment but the
7:44
robotic side of things would be a somewhat custom uh device from the outside looking in it really appears
7:50
that getting a machine to do that to increase production time which is great for me it's only really possible for a
7:57
large company with big pocketbooks is that true maybe historically that was
8:02
the case but not necessarily today anymore so there is equipment available
8:08
and we cater towards many uh customers who are maybe below 10 employees right
8:16
um it doesn't always have to be a very expensive capital expenditure piece of equipment um when you scale a business
8:23
and you you're at a given stage with your business and and a certain volume often times there are smaller tabletop
8:30
systems available you could purchase so you can basically step through and purchase equipment that grows with you
8:37
of course oftentimes what people think about when you think of automation is a large machine and everything is fully
8:44
automated but often times that really is only the end kind of system um and the
8:50
upper echelon type of system but there's many steps in between and and typically
8:56
a very typical path is to go a path of semi automation right right so you might
9:02
automate certain aspects of your process that is very intensive labor intensive
9:07
um and also the reasons why you automate might not be the same for everyone right
9:13
in in the food world the automation might be uh the reason might be to to avoid
9:20
maybe any trouble with the FDA and you don't want any touch points right um for another company um the automation the
9:27
main driver might be orgon omcs right to eliminate repetitive motion injuries and
9:34
things like this right so automation can have many reasons to be implemented in the end um I always say automation is a
9:42
really good fit for highly repetitive tasks and um in the end people don't
9:51
want to be robots right for lack of a better term so if you do something 70 uh
9:56
several thousand times a day on a given shift um the issue that oftentimes comes along
10:02
with that is uh you know is the retention of the employees uh workers comp cost might go up because of
10:09
repetitive motion or ergonomics issues um and quality suffers because we simply
10:14
can't focus for extended periods of times on a repetitive task humans are
10:19
not built to do that while a robot or a piece of equipment will repeatedly do it in the same fashion no matter how many
10:26
hours it has run that day so you saw solving in multiple layers of problems when you take the step of automation a
10:34
lot of people who are freeze drying get into the different modes and processes that they've just always known it's
10:40
tough to kind of shift your mindset to that things could be done better even
10:45
though you've always done it the other way and one of those that I've always done is I've always physically stamped
10:52
my bags um I actually have one of my bags right here and I physically stamp my bags on here now am small enough but
11:00
I can I I definitely can see how I'm not meant to do it like 500 bags at a time I
11:06
got I can stamp about a hundred and then my mind kind of goes to like I need a break or uh my my accuracy kind of
11:14
changes because I just need a mental break from that versus I can see that if I did go to something that could print
11:20
off the labels uh you know in bulk it's like that machine doesn't get tired it
11:26
just runs out of ink uh so it's that's correct very yeah um and I think people who are
11:32
listening too you know I think about any of the workers that you have or even if
11:37
you're still doing it yourself I know what people are doing and with especially with freeze-dried Skittles or
11:44
other type of candy you are literally taking your hand or you're taking a scoop and you're dumping it into a bag
11:51
or a container corre that's because you just haven't you kind of Hit the threshold of how much labor you're
11:57
willing to put into doing that for how many periods of time and if you're at the point right now where you're like
12:04
this is causing me stress it's thinking it's causing me to think about exiting doing my business because I've been
12:11
doing it for years the reason to talk to someone like yourself is worth it even for a consult because you can kind of
12:17
see like wow yeah I could be focusing on marketing I could be focusing on sales I could be focusing on the things that
12:24
don't require a ton of Labor uh to to do that that's that's correct and what
12:29
you're describing is very common for us to actually go into a company and toward
12:35
the facility and help these potential customers to identify areas that would
12:41
be a good fit for automation exactly like you described you you're a specialist in making
12:48
freeze-dried foods and the next customers uh maybe a gift card
12:54
manufacturing customer they're good at making gift cards all day everyone has their focus um but you might not know
13:01
exactly what is out there that could help me increase productivity uh in you know maintain quality and also lower my
13:09
uh unit cost right so uh that's typically where we come in oftentimes
13:15
can identify areas fairly quickly where we can bring True Value to an operation we um will only do that for the areas of
13:23
course where we you know that's our our um strength and um we will maybe refer
13:29
customers to other companies that that uh they serve better there um automation
13:34
just tends to be a fairly large term where a lot of things are lumped together so um but if you if you have a
13:42
good partner and and you are a manufacturer who's in growth mode um I
13:49
think it's very important to early on start to think about an automation
13:55
strategy and that is something that is not at hoc and happens for three months this is almost something that goes along
14:02
with the things that you just mentioned several times you know marketing is something that you want to do
14:08
continuously it's not something I only do for two months out of the year you know I always describe um automation
14:14
it's like brushing teeth you don't do it for 12 hours once a year right you do it
14:20
you know for a few minutes twice a day every day of the year right and that's what will get you the results right and
14:28
and when you come into that that manufacturing space from a competition
14:34
perspective when you look at it from from a Marketplace perspective um you'll
14:40
always oftentimes see that the companies who have implemented that strategy um
14:46
and even if they've only gotten maybe 10 15% better every year after three years
14:52
that company is 45% ahead of the competition I think of like a real world
14:58
example I Supply my my freeze Dr fruit to a company that does corporate gift
15:04
baskets and the only thing that they have in automation that they invested in was a like shrink wrapping machine yeah
15:13
um so they have different types of baskets for different sizes so they can fit different types of products and so
15:22
there might be 10 or 12 or a dozen you know whatever type of products there are but they have different baskets well she
15:29
had told me that when they first started the lady that they bought it from she
15:34
was wrapping those things herself and tying the bows and doing all these things and they quickly found out that
15:41
they didn't want to do that anymore so they bought this machine that literally they just put the basket with everything
15:47
on it and it goes on a conveyor belt and it has about the size of a microwave
15:52
area that goes that goes in the basket goes through and it literally shrink wraps it seals it and makes the little
16:00
fine print Like Glue to it and then out comes a perfectly shrink wrapped
16:07
corporate gift basket yes and it's the way that they do things now they are seasonal so come September and October
16:14
and November you know they they are making so many so that that was really important for them to have that type of
16:21
automation for that so I I wanted to bring that up so that that makes a lot
16:26
of sense and that's only one machine that's one machine and shrink wrapping is very common together with flow
16:32
wrapping um we have had customers that they have had a a heat gun in their hand
16:40
and literally wrap things by hand and then use the heat gun to shrink each individual piece and once they get a
16:46
shrink wrap machine all of a sudden they can wrap 30 for 35 uh pieces a minute
16:52
where before they did maybe to a minute right yes so um automation always
16:58
requires some volume right I think that that's you have to justify it with the volume but um once you're at that stage
17:06
it doesn't have to be incredibly expensive um to take your your point with the shrink wrap um really small
17:13
shrink wrap units they probably start at around $7,500 right and and um that's a really
17:21
well-built unit maybe from Taiwan and that'll give you service for many years
17:26
to come and then there's many many different pieces of equipment all the way to full automation um but you can
17:31
step through and the equipment often times can just grow with you Joshua I want to talk about stages what are the
17:38
indicators based on your experience with clients today and in the past that have
17:43
caused them to actually say enough is enough I need to go start looking at researching end ofline systems what are
17:51
those indicators especially when the last maybe after covid it has shifted a little bit and and not so much that we
17:59
have to um point out or or help customers find find the place for
18:05
automation what really has happened especially after covid is that people
18:10
approach us and say we can't produce because we can't find employees and if
18:16
we find them we can't retain them right so this NeverEnding cycle of hiring
18:22
rehiring retraining makes quality suffer so bad that um they want to go to
18:29
Automation in the past it was more that we had to help them maybe point out
18:34
areas now that really has shifted quite a bit that we are approached actively
18:40
with the fact that um people simply can't produce anymore because they can't find people who want to do these highly
18:46
repetitive tasks they in and they out and when they find people they
18:53
oftentimes quickly you know leave these positions again so that is where we
18:59
entering the world of maybe uh misconception about the automation world right and especially robotics because
19:06
it's oftentimes portrayed as something that eliminates positions or jobs the
19:11
reality is really that people don't want to do these jobs in the first place what this automation oftentimes does and we
19:18
see this over and over again with customers in just about any field is
19:23
that it increases employee retention because now these people that otherwise
19:29
would have left are now being given a meaningful task and now they have a sense of pride in that job they have a
19:36
sense of career path in front of them instead of waking up or worrying on a Sunday night oh my God tomorrow I have
19:43
this eight hour shift where I have to do this motion 16,000 times a day that's not something to look forward to right
19:49
right so these are automations automation systems that make perfect sense and these people now will stay we
19:57
I had one customer specifically tell me that there was concern in the group of
20:03
employees about the first robot the first ever robot taking the jobs away
20:09
and after six seven or eight months of the robot working in the facility being deployed and act now the fear went away
20:19
and now they they call themselves robot operators right so it shifted from Fear
20:25
to a sense of Pride of the technology right yeah and I I can see that practically speaking you know you think
20:31
about the minimum wage that all of our states have but also we're evolving to
20:37
where it's really expensive with inflation and the cost of living in America that uh people need higher pay
20:46
and that's why they're not staying in jobs too and so when at if you're paying
20:51
someone especially to unwrap freeze-dried can unwrap candy so that it
20:57
can be freeze-dried if you're paying someone even let's say $15 an hour you
21:03
know multiply that by about 2,000 which is the average hours in a given year that's a
21:10
$30,000 average pay but that's I would think that you're making money on that
21:16
employee if they stick around for the entire year doing that kind of mundane
21:21
task um but if they leave and you have to retrain three people in that year for
21:27
the same job at $15 you probably spent three times that salary in cost just in
21:34
time and training so if that machine costs you $330,000 to automate what
21:41
they're doing you're already saving money uh on your training and trying to
21:47
find those people so I agree with you yeah it's it's something you have to be open to and and so you have to you have
21:55
to kind of adapt to what the the market is like it's just the fact when you look at product Cycles in the
22:00
in the consumer world then it's totally normal for us to purchase a new phone a new laptop every s you know and and when
22:08
you look at a new phone and you know then you have a new release and this year it's green instead of orange whatever the case might be right but
22:14
we're used to fast product Cycles in the manufacturing world that is somewhat exactly the polar opposite because you
22:22
equ you know investing in a piece of equipment that might give you another 10 15 years of service right right until it
22:29
reaches its end of life and when you have something that provides you a service as long um people always look at
22:36
the high cost that you just described and so now it's a justification of Labor savings right and the equipment
22:44
automation industry actually has evolved with that so historically um you would look at a a
22:50
proposal a quote for a piece of equipment and that would clearly be in a capital expenditure category right you
22:57
have to have the fun you might have to go to the bank and get a loan somehow you have to pay this big upfront cost
23:04
and and spread it over many years of operation right so the equipment and automation industry has actually evolved
23:11
with I think this new need for a different approach in in how to get equipment to manufacturers and that is
23:17
Shifting the capital expenditure into an operational expense so what you find more and more and we are included in
23:25
that to some extent is that equipment is not offered only for sale as a outright
23:31
sale offer but uh you have um systems or abbreviations I think stolen a little
23:37
bit from the software World SAS software as a service now you have M machine as a service you have RAs robot as a service
23:45
right and all of a sudden you don't have to come up with this large expense up front but you essentially getting a
23:52
piece of equipment for a continuous monthly operational expense almost like
23:58
an employee without having to come up with this large lump sum at the time of purchase what is the difference between
24:05
a business using capital expenditure versus making it an operating expense
24:10
and and this really depends on how um the company runs financially in and
24:16
smaller companies oftentimes there's not the capital available um just sitting in
24:21
a bank account in form of calf to to purchase a piece of equipment so if if
24:27
you go to aut route um there might be smaller items available like I just described these very semi-automatic
24:34
shrink W that starts at maybe 7500 but the reality is when you're entering the equipment world you also
24:41
quickly venture out in the six figures plus right so let's say a company is at
24:47
a stage where it is ready to you know could really benefit from a piece of
24:53
equipment that would automate a certain aspect of the process and let's say
24:58
that's $125,000 but most businesses do not have this kind of cash
25:04
sitting around so their option uh their only option would be to continue the way
25:10
they have been and maybe save up until they reach that point and it could be years in the future or they approach a
25:16
bank for a Capital Equipment loan you know as a as a capital um uh loan for
25:22
the equipment or now manufacturers offer the machine as a service so to speak so
25:29
they say hey we'll give you this machine and instead of purchasing it from us um
25:34
we're going to do a 36 month plan or whatever May the case may be and instead
25:39
of coming up with this large lump sum up front you can have this piece of equipment maybe for let's say I'm going
25:46
to throw a number out $5,000 a month and that includes the wear and tear parts
25:52
and uh phone support for example yeah and this way that makes it much more
25:57
accessible to a manufacturer who doesn't maybe even want to spend the money maybe some customers have the money but they
26:04
don't want to pour all that cash Reserve into a piece of equipment but can you
26:09
know with their operational um income they have every month just cover the cost of that piece of equipment and
26:16
oftentimes with these processes there is a buyout option in a few years where you've used a piece of equipment you
26:22
like it and now you you've already used it and then there's a lower buyout option right yeah it's like it's a Le
26:28
like equipment and basically especially on the freeze dried candy side and freeze freeze
26:35
drying I I know that there are a lot of companies who they are literally Turning
26:43
Away business because they cannot keep up with the demand not only with the
26:48
machines to freeze dry it but even if they had the machines they can't hire or
26:53
do it fast enough to fulfill the orders so if you have a a a regional
27:00
distributor that wants a 100,000 bags of freeze-dried candy a month for their
27:06
first order can you fulfill that in the in 60 days can you fulfill that in 30
27:13
days um and if you can't then you're never going to get another reorder that's right and so uh even though
27:20
$5,000 a month seems even still a lot it's like well yeah but now you can
27:26
accept that order that gives you 50% of the deposit of that 100,000 unit and now
27:33
you do have the money to pay for that monthly expenditure that's right and now you have one the logo to talk to other
27:41
Distributors that hey I'm doing fulfillment for this wholesale company that you know so now you can go and sell
27:46
more now you can hire more people correct and and figure that all out that's correct yeah and there's even
27:53
some more creative approaches to this dilemma with with the high entry-level cost if if you will um is often times uh
28:01
machines are offered now um basically as a almost like a printer back in the days
28:07
with a click charge right where the manufacturer of the equipment says hey um you know we let's do this 36-month
28:15
contract and you'll give us 1.5 cents per pack that runs to the machine right
28:21
now you have a direct Revenue stream associated with that machine expense and you can do a pretty clear calculation of
28:27
what your cost cost will be for the unit we've done something like this in the past I mean it's and and of course if you run a lot then the machine costs a
28:34
lot but it gives you an entry to a piece of equipment and otherwise you would not have so there's there's many
28:40
manufacturers who offer these very flexible uh you know equipment um um
28:45
acquisition systems now hey Josh my next question is about the sales process that you have within Eis because yes we're
28:52
talking hypothetically about different scenarios and things but for someone who has a freeze-dried business business and
28:58
is trying to scale what can I expect that process is like for you what do you
29:04
talk to me about what do you want to know about what should I have prepared for you it's important to do maybe some
29:09
homework and find out what companies um there might be companies that specialize
29:15
in your specific industry right so that that could be the case too um and
29:20
working with someone who specializes often times very beneficial because they've already done the mistakes they
29:26
have developed products around them they know some of the answers that maybe a company um who doesn't know your indust
29:32
that doesn't know your industry would have to learn that is actually most of the time the case uh for us we we are
29:39
approached and we have a specific skill set that differentiates us from maybe some of the competitors but that also
29:45
means that we will have to learn about your industry right so um if there's standard options standard pieces of
29:52
equipment that are specifically made for your industry we will always say hey we know someone there's a company who ators
29:58
towards this and um they can help you better than we can um then we're entering the world the segment of the
30:05
end of line uh maybe some primary packaging but secondary packaging all the way to the palletizing uh where
30:13
product gets handled it gets batched sorted stacked manipulated in some way
30:19
and on top of uh that maybe the data is managed and tracked right so um a big
30:26
change to maybe even a few years ago manufacturing is that manufacturing you had a production line and and a given
30:34
machine or a production line was a source of a given product and and in today's world typically production line
30:40
is not only a source of a product anymore it's also a source of a data stream and especially as you go up in
30:47
volume you typically would like to know what's happening on the floor what are
30:52
we doing why are we down how much throughput did we have how much waste did we have um if we had downtime why
30:59
did we have downtime right so and that's typically where we come in with our software packages and things like this
31:05
and we talk the customer through what he would like from us uh out to get out of the system and and that is aside from
31:13
all the hardware right um but if you approach us very common as we go through
31:19
a project Discovery phase right and the customer would reach out initially and
31:24
then we would um basically hear the customer out what are you doing what are you currently doing what would you like
31:31
to achieve and maybe also give some hints and tips on um what we've done on the past and what we how can we see
31:38
solving this problem for the customer right and that then goes into a stage to
31:44
eventually you've you've done a lot of um you know exchange details and we're talking sometimes weeks and months right
31:52
and eventually you go to like a kickoff stage at which point in time um if the
31:58
customer does not um write it uh inhouse we will write it for the customer a very
32:05
detailed statement of work so um a lot of the the lines we design and Implement
32:15
have some tailoring to it or they're specific to to a product or specific to a process so it's very important that
32:21
you write down um in in detail what the requirements are and how we're going to
32:27
solve them so you have basically this unifying document where both both teams
32:34
uh know exactly what the expectation is and what the deliverables are right um
32:39
this is a very critical phase because that's where a lot of projects can go south um when things are said in a phone
32:47
call hey uh I forgot to tell you something and you're sitting on a red light out in the field and don't you
32:53
remember I told you this six weeks ago on the phone right um C you remember I I
32:58
sent you that text message and in the end you have a unifying document to
33:04
protect everyone from this kind of scope creep and and um miscommunication if you
33:10
will right and in the end um that increases the success rate
33:16
dramatically um from there on out once you find that agreement we'll go to like a pre-design type stage where we make
33:22
preliminary designs uh talk it through with the customer and always make sure we're communicating step of the way with
33:28
the customer and once we have that we go through the final design phase uh again
33:34
review this with the customer this is also the point where uh somebody will be assigned a dedicated project manager so
33:41
the sales engineer will not be involved anymore but a dedicated project manager will take over and basically manage all
33:47
the given details and um we're going to design build fabrication and um and then do final
33:55
testing so oftentimes at the very and the last link in the chain is what's called an fat or an SAT sometimes both
34:03
it's a factory acceptance test or a site acceptance test and that's the point where you take out that statement of
34:10
work from the beginning and now you start checking box and say does it do this does it do this does it do this and
34:16
if it doesn't you have to correct it right it sounds like it's very much like a general contractor for building a
34:23
house or building a commercial space you you have to go through through periods
34:29
where you work with an architect to do the design and they coordinate with the structural engineers the MEP the
34:35
electrical all of that and then uh it goes through kind of the permit stage
34:41
and the design approval and then you're ready to rock but then you also the one who helps on the general contractor side
34:49
as it relates to con construction where you're saying okay this is the pieces that we need from this to assemble this
34:57
area um things like that how are you able to do all this from your headquarters in Las Vegas for someone
35:03
who's in Louisiana or someone who's in Florida how are you able to help people across the country uh when it comes to
35:10
the assembly part of it so there's a few different aspects to this but I'm going to answer your question in terms of um
35:16
maybe um Geographic proximity so we do have systems in stock globally um and i'
35:25
have to think but we have small system in shenzen China we have systems in
35:30
England Holland Canada uh Australia um and and luckily we haven't
35:38
had to fly out there yet right so so every single piece of equipment we uh
35:44
put out has remote login capability so if a customer has an issue and he needs
35:50
troubleshooting all he needs to do is plug it into the internet port and we
35:55
can access the machine from anywhere in the world anywhere in the world right so
36:01
and we can help troubleshoot so point you know to make Give an example we uh
36:07
we helped the customer I think maybe two two and a half months ago um they have one of our emotion control Servo systems
36:14
we helped them down in Argentina so we logged in remotely from Las Vegas we saw what was wrong with the
36:20
system the customer wanted a software update on a touchcreen so we just reprogrammed the touchs screen pushed the new software and never had to fly
36:27
right that's very powerful because it it saves a lot of cost and time so
36:34
historically you would have to schedule an engineer or a technician to go out there so now it takes two weeks to get
36:40
there now you have the flight cost accommodation per DM right the time and
36:46
what used to maybe be two three weeks is now a matter of waiting at the worst one
36:52
day for someone to log in and and solve a problem um in terms of complex I I'll
36:58
touch a little bit on this so we specifically do not offer systems that
37:03
fall into the category of what we call system integration so system integration is typically a project where
37:12
and a system already exists and then something gets attached to added to
37:17
modified um because um the farther the customer is
37:23
away and you have to do these types of um integration services and pieces of
37:28
equipment that gets attached or added to the success rate goes down sure simp
37:33
that because we can't fully test 100% at our site right because you need that
37:38
other piece of equipment to fully test the system and and uh designing and building something that we can't test
37:45
100% on site is typically projects we don't um um you know go out and and
37:52
offer the customers now that being said the closer it gets to Las Vegas the more
37:58
custom we will get right yes simply because we can serve that customer better but we go and build systems for
38:04
customers who far away let's take a standardized pelletizer right we have a pelletizing system that is a standard
38:10
product for us um then not a problem we can sell it to the east coast because it's a standard piece of equipment
38:16
there's no custom aspect to it um or very little custom aspect and then we
38:21
can increase our our shipping radius if you will so the more standardized it is
38:27
the farther it reaches the less standed it is the the reaches I can see that so
38:33
there's you know for anybody there's standardized ways of of having things you have your own products that are very
38:39
easy to for yourself to scale but then you also have um things that are going to be more customized in freeze drying
38:46
we have to we're freeze drying candy most a lot of times and a lot of candy comes in a wrapper form do you see there
38:52
being any way to automate the unwrapping of candy I can almost see is it possible
38:58
to have two robotic arms like on an assembly line literally like catching
39:03
each piece to pull it apart to like unwrap it we're entering the realm of um
39:09
very specific problems for specific Industries often times I think we underestimate how complex human motion
39:18
vision and hearing actually is humans do very complex tasks without even noticing
39:25
that they're doing complex tasks so when you unwrap something you have to have
39:30
complex motion multiaxis articulated motion right and that motion is Guided
39:36
by your visual Instinct so you would have to have a system that can see know
39:42
what it's looking at identify the right contact points and then dynamically
39:48
guide an end of arm tool to do this in a different position for each piece right
39:55
um so seems very seems very expensive it's yeah I mean it gets really complex
40:00
I think we're now entering a stage where these things are very feasible especially with AI vision technology but
40:07
they are not in the category of entry level yeah and and I would ask the
40:12
question if there's a significant volume behind that could whoever is manufacturing the candy deliver it to
40:19
the freeze dry industry on wrapped right because we're also entering the the space of how much waste are generating
40:26
right right um and that might be okay if it's a few hundred pieces every day on a small level eventually you probably would want
40:34
to not have to unwrap it in the first place I would guess yeah I agree with you yeah it's just a a question that I
40:40
was like okay I know I I know every I know everyone in freeze drying candy is
40:47
doing this yeah and so that was my question but yeah yeah I mean you could probably have a tabletop set up where
40:53
you don't pull yourself anymore but you can have a robot arm inserting the candy
40:59
into maybe a two axis system and this twoa pulls apart and rotates and the candy falls out and the paper's
41:05
discarded right so you could have a random um a pick robot right that picks
41:12
from a basically like a bulk tray and then inserts it in a small unit that unwraps it and it falls out that's
41:19
something that might be feasible on a table toop setup but even that might you know drive cost in the tens of the th
41:25
tens of thousands of dollars yeah for a small um um project and often times not
41:32
just the hardware but if you sit down with an engineering team and they have to develop the solution so there's a
41:39
fairly large development cost typically associated with that thanks a lot for joining us on the podcast and talking
41:45
about this I think there's a lot of great little nuggets that we've gained from this yeah and it's definitely very
41:51
helpful for us to think about as we're freeze drying and we're thinking about being entrepreneurs ways to innovate um
41:59
so that we don't have to uh look at things that uh complicate things in our
42:04
business so yeah thank you David and I hope this was helpful to you and also your audience and if you have any
42:10
questions in the future anything comes up or one of your uh podcast listeners is any questions feel free to reach out
42:17
and and we'll answer the best we can all right take care so much thank you
42:23
[Music]
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