Building the Future of Automated Manufacturing

Damon Pistulka  00:03

All right, everyone, it’s Friday and you know what that means it’s time for manufacturing ecommerce success. I’m one of your co host, Damon Pustaka. And that pretty gentleman right over there. As Curt Anderson co host. We’re going to be talking today about building the future of automated manufacturing with Ryan Lillibridge. Here, Curt, my friend. Take it away.

Curt Anderson  00:27

Damon, how’s your week going? How you doing? All right.

Damon Pistulka  00:30

Awesome,

Curt Anderson  00:31

man. It couldn’t be any better, man. Just if it was any better. You’d have to call 911 right now like It’s good right now for the conversation that we’re going to have. I’m just super super fired up. Ryan. mission design and automation. Happy Friday to you my friend. How are you?

Ryan Lillibridge  00:49

I’m doing great guys. I’m excited about today and Sun’s out a little bit right now. So that’s good news, Michigan. When the sun comes out. We’re all pretty happy. Good. Yeah. It’s

Curt Anderson  00:59

supposed to be like 80 or something like it’s Yeah, so maybe Spring is finally here. I don’t know what’s happening. But I we have a ton of packed ton to cover here. So Happy Friday to you guys. Man. Drop your comments in the chat box. Let us know that out there. Hey, we’ve got some friends already dropping notes here. Yeah, we had Harry’s here today. Hey, Friday, Harry.

Damon Pistulka  01:18

Happy Friday. Do you got Whitney stopping in array? Thanks, Whitney. Whitney Houston and

Curt Anderson  01:23

Ryan. You met Whitney in at the industrial marketing Summit, did you not? So, man we had a great time. So right Damon, I had the honor privilege meeting Ryan in person at the industrial marketing Summit. Back in January. We had a great what, man Ryan? Was that a great shoulder? What?

Ryan Lillibridge  01:39

That was great. I mean, my mind was blown with a number of different presentations and some AI conversations of course this year that you’re actually tactical and useful for how to use those tools and then really enjoyed the the event and how it was hosted. And Payton and the team putting that on and doing well. Right. It was just fun. Oh, man,

Curt Anderson  02:00

it was bananas. Damon It was absolutely. As a matter of fact, Ryan, you’re gonna love this. So those AI Sammy birches I met in person at the industrial marketing Summit. So here’s the cool thing. Ryan, if you remember Dale, remember Dale was the AI guru. He’s on the pro. He’s on our live show next Friday. So right, right, this very minute week from this very minute, we’re gonna have Dale he’s gonna be geeking out about AI. And then Carla Gregory. She was on a panel for AI. She’s going to be on a program on Monday. So next week is AI week, man, so I can’t wait. But let’s dive in. Today. We’re talking automation. So Ryan is a little guy grown. Let’s go here. A little guy growing up in the great state of Michigan. Who was your hero? Who was your heroes? Little guy grown up?

Ryan Lillibridge  02:47

Mm hmm. That’s a good question. Curt  didn’t You didn’t prep me at all.

Curt Anderson  02:52

I actually had I had, I had no intention of prepping you on that one.

Ryan Lillibridge  02:57

I would say my grandpa my grandpa was my hero. Just kind of a rock for the family. And a strong foundation for all of us brought us all together. We did every Sunday at their place. So really a sense of family and community and kind of the matriarch of all that you’re not the nature patriarch of all these right?

Curt Anderson  03:23

Yep, that’s let’s take let’s take it another step further so grandpa’s name please.

Ryan Lillibridge  03:30

But is his name or when we call him but but or when’s his name so we’ll

Curt Anderson  03:35

go with Biden So big shout out to bud so just share just share a little bit of buds background like what was so inspiring Why would you know he was a rock to you just a great someone to look up to maybe mentor? What made grandpa’s grandpa bud so great. Yeah,

Ryan Lillibridge  03:50

I think um, you know, he worked hard. Every day in and out was a pattern maker. So I think that’s where I get a little bit of my engineering side from is that art of pattern making woodworking just bringing the family together and kind of a spiritual leader too. So just appreciate that. Well,

Damon Pistulka  04:11

yeah, I mean, patternmaking that’s that’s just such a it’s such a cool thing and it’s a dying art now with with the CNC and solid modeling of it, but man it is, it is such a cool thing to watch people that are good at that. Yeah,

Ryan Lillibridge  04:27

it was before all those things. Oh, yeah. All the tools all the measurements metrology stuff. Building out patterns was man the complexity and the math that had to happen by

Damon Pistulka  04:39

caliper thingies that they would use they would keep shaping and they all the different with Oh,

Ryan Lillibridge  04:45

yeah, yeah, he had some gone through some tools maybe a year or two ago with them that he was like, I don’t use these anymore. Can you sell them on Craigslist? So pretty a pretty precise nice stuff, right? So yeah, Uh,

Curt Anderson  05:01

well hey, great answer right in the funny, not funny. But the interesting thing is, you know, a lot of times we just take for granted, we’re around different people same age older, younger, and you just never know the impression that you’re leaving on somebody. And so I just I love what you’re saying about grandpa bud, man of integrity guy sounds like a guy of faith and just, you know, just what a wonderful inspiration and left a big imprint on you. And so look at what a great success you are today. Thanks for grandpa bud. So let’s continue forward. So Grand Valley State, do I have that correct? Did you go to this? Correct? Yeah. So you go. So follow the footsteps of Grandpa, grandpa bud, you go to Grand Valley State, we could have gotten into all sorts of different career pursuits, industries. You brought your talents, your skills, your expertise into manufacturing, why what attracted you to manufacturing?

Ryan Lillibridge  05:52

occurred? I think it’s the idea of just creating something, right. I like the sciences when I was in school, but I often did experiments at home with different things. Maybe I shouldn’t, maybe I should have like, let’s make some chemicals together. Let’s get the things on fire. Let’s smash some things as a little boy, you’re pretty adventurous right? Let’s build a catapult in the backyard and see what we can do with those kinds of things, or will throw me a football. Right? So just building creating with my hands was part of it that I really liked. And it seemed like engineering was the path to take where you get to learn the mathematics and the science behind doing that. And that’s what I liked about it was it craves tangible things in this world that benefit people? And that was exciting to me. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  06:43

Awesome. All right, just great career pursuit. And again, you know, big thing that we’d like to hammer is like, for young, you know, all the cool kids are going in manufacturing, Ryan, you know that, of course, you’re just a perfect example of just some really exciting things going on. So let’s slide into Alright, so you pursue manufacturing, give us a little background on your career. And then we’re going to dive into what’s going on admission, but just give us filling some gaps from from college today. What What were some exciting things that you’ve seen throughout your career? Yeah,

Ryan Lillibridge  07:11

so I went to college at Grand Valley, participate in a number of different events there and started, met my wife. So I’m gonna say this first, because this is my first priority is a, my beautiful wife helps support me and make sure that I can do the things I do. And then I’ve got three boys that are kind of why I do what I do every day, right? Yeah, yeah. And so at home, I’ve got those, those four that that are my rock and carry me, so appreciate them. And then also, we have a small little farm at home going for some forage, and lots of animals at home. So keeps us busy that way. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  07:53

So what’s on the farm? Let’s hear it. Let’s hear. What do you what do you what do you have?

Ryan Lillibridge  07:59

I got two cows, three pigs, chickens, and a dog. So well, I don’t think I forgot anything. But

Curt Anderson  08:06

all right. Well, God bless him. Man, you are a busy dude, man. No rest for the weary at the Lillibridge. House. Man. Absolutely love it. So let’s dive in here. Right. So you pursue career. You’ve been in automation for quite some time, as I understand, is that correct? Yes.

Ryan Lillibridge  08:22

Yeah. I’ve been in automation for around 19 years long enough to where I start to forget how many years I’m supposed to say. Yeah, yeah. It’s been 18. Somewhere in there. Yeah. In college, and at Grand Valley, they do a Co Op program. Yes, no, I was a beneficiary of that program started my co op, automation company was a small automation company, when I started was big when I made a change to mission. So got into that through the few dip in interviews, and really fell in love with automation. So I had been exposed to some different manufacturing at times, and a lot of places and a lot of manufacturing or producing one part. And there’s cool things you can do to improve the processes and optimize that. But when I went into automation, what I realized is, I get to see all the cool things, all the places. The manufacturing that I get to see is just amazing in the automation business, of what people want to do, what they want to automate, where it goes whether it’s food processing, to construction, to indoor farming, to aerospace to e commerce, whatever industry you want to talk about. There’s a lot of things in my life that I look at a lot differently now. Because I’ve been within the facilities seeing how it’s made. So my entire life gets to be a how it’s made. TV show every day. And that’s just what’s exciting to me as I like shiny objects, and I like things changing. I like seeing different things every day. And this this career is what’s allowed me to do that.

Curt Anderson  09:57

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely love it. So I want to Have you piqued my curiosity here? So you talked about, you know, your previous life previous company, there was a lot of growth? Sure, a little bit like what evolution revolution? What have you seen in automation over your 1819 years? Yeah,

Ryan Lillibridge  10:12

yeah. And it’s, some of the things stay the same, right? We continue to work with people, people are the root of it all, where we talk with each other, like real humans with real problems with real careers, concerned about making production rates, and quality parts and good things. So it’s good to know that there’s some constants as well in there. But the things that changed are the technology and kind of the adoption and the skill sets and resources that are out there. So it’s exciting to see as colleges pick up like, we had an older robot when I was in college. But it was a pretty old robot, a little bit of automation stuff, some donated PLCs, like slick five hundreds. So when we were learning that stuff, it was little bit different. But really, the thing that’s exciting to me is kind of the programming, the accessibility, the education system, starting to come around with FIRST Robotics, that was not a thing when I started. The STEM programs that are initiating through Vex, and other areas that are just exposing kids to these things, and they get to see it sooner. And they’re coming into the industry with this knowledge base that’s almost second nature to them, right? Using computers, 3d printers at home with kids are caterpillars, and programmable robots, so you can switch between Python and Java and that draw art pictures. So there’s just so many toys and tools and exposure for kids that are coming in. And seeing that skill set that goes into manufacturing, allows us to create new ideas and cool ideas. I mentioned 3d printing, we use that every day and production on our equipment. So 3d printing, Nast are different components or 3d printing ideas that we want to try and see if they break or work or don’t work. When I started, there was kind of a, it wasn’t really around in production, it wasn’t accessible. It was a r&d phase of 3d printing. And some of the big giant companies maybe had one in a lab somewhere. So I would say that’s one we see quite a bit of all over the place. Now. Vision. So robot perception has really come a long ways with the libraries and availability. So that’s exciting to me 3d been picking I feel like, for years, I used to work with an r&d member that would every three years or so we’d have someone to ask us for been picking, we would get out the latest trick technology and try it out. And what would happen is like not yet, right? So it’s a good marketing pitch, but you don’t actually want to buy it yet. So really, the last three to four years. Those systems have come alive and are able you’re able to put them in production. They work well. Right. So there’s some cool stuff like that, right?

13:11

That’s huge. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  13:12

I think what’s great is out, you know, like, like 3d printing, for example, David, you know, you were an automation your career. And you know, what was a nice to have or just kind of this like, funky weird. Yeah, technology is now mission critical. It’s now must to have on a daily basis.

Ryan Lillibridge  13:31

Yeah, when you print them, we’re airlines would go. So you’re not routing airlines anymore. Creative creativity that’s can be induced with that technology.

Damon Pistulka  13:43

Yeah, you just rethink the way you design something. Because now you can make it like you never could before. Yeah.

Ryan Lillibridge  13:48

Yeah. Well, you’re damaged. Do you ever use it before?

Damon Pistulka  13:52

I did. Yeah. Yeah, I did last, the last couple of projects I did before we started this company, I, we use a lot of 3d printing and simple for different things in an assembly process that we were building out. So it is, it is it is and when you see it to where, you know, where once was a toy. Now it was something that you can actually, I mean, you’re making stuff with it that you’re using. And that’s that’s pretty cool. When you switch to that. And you know that there’s just Yeah, so many different technologies, but we’re talking about automation you get because of your cross sectional thing. I didn’t even think about till you’re talking about food processing, warehouse kind of applications, but you just said picking. I mean, the automation has to be just exploding the uses because of things like 3d printing, but also the intelligence that they’re getting, and I’m not you know, not necessarily for me I just because of the development of the systems and software Everything else, and maybe AI is helping that. But you’ve got to see it just getting spreading out into places where it wasn’t before.

Ryan Lillibridge  15:09

Yeah, it is, right. There’s smaller manufacturers, medium manufacturers that are getting exposed to it. Depending on how they get introduced to it, sometimes it’s, I do have that education system. Creating someone that joins my team that’s now had eight years of robotics, through high school and college, I may come out and watch, you know, we’re doing some of the CNC stuff. And, hey, why don’t we get one of these robots in here, and I can figure this out. So you have some smaller groups that are, you know, 10 employees that may take that leap and try that out, right, because it has some of your staff that will work through it. But then you have a whole bunch of software coming alongside there’s different programming methodologies that are starting to become more mature, I want to say we use them every day, there are certain ones that we do use, we’ve got a machine on our floor that one of our customers using video game software to move and mobilize a robot. So really cool connections being made, that won’t typically be made, right. So it’s exciting to see where that’s going, how it’s developing, and what it may look like, right, and the ease of use the push to make that more user friendly, I think is really strong. Partially because of skills gap. The programming side, right, you have to have a strong skill set to get into some of the industrial robots and program in the manner that they have, there’s a good amount of training that needs to take place. But there’s a lot of people that are learning Python and different types of programming languages. So I see a lot of companies working towards making that employee base a little bit broader by changing the dynamic or how you program a robot, right?

Damon Pistulka  16:55

Yeah, yeah, it’s huge. It opens up the programming or the ability to program to so many more people. Yeah, yeah, get those things. So we got a couple of comments here. So first of all, Whitney, my son’s Elementary School has 3d printers in the library. Yeah. How cool is that? You know, oh, that’s incredible.

Curt Anderson  17:13

You know, so now, you know, young people are just, you know, now it’s just everyday part of the thing.

Damon Pistulka  17:17

It’s just a thing. I decided to make this now I just printed out, right? It just those words didn’t come out. 15 years ago, people in school, right. So question four from Harry phalaris here. And it’s if you are an 18 year old, who would rather train to become a robotics and automation technician, instead of going to a formal four year college? What are the options? Good, yes. And Harry? No,

Ryan Lillibridge  17:46

I would say we’ve got people on our team that don’t have college degrees. And they don’t need them. Right. It’s, I really think the stigma around education is shifting towards skilled trades. And not everyone needs to go to college. When I was in school, that was the path that was promoted and talked about go to college, get a degree when you walked up to someone just high school graduation party, they were asked, Where are you going to college? Those questions are changing and shifting. And if someone’s like, I’m going to be a weld apprentice. So for the robotic side, there’s a number of different places that you can go to get education. A lot of different educational centers are popping up for skilled trade centers. I know for us GRCC here locally, Grand Rapids Community College has a number of robots in place. Yeah, we host classes for our customers, robot training. For learning that kind of the basics, handling tool, DCS, those kinds of things as well. So yeah,

Damon Pistulka  18:49

and I know that the bigger corporations are starting to actually like welding or other things like that they’re starting their own internal apprenticeship programs, where they’re bringing skilled people or people with the right motivation and skill sets to come into those programs and building their own developing their own people that understand the robotics and then sending them to your places and others public yet. So there’s these opportunities for people going into manufacturing young people, even without a technical degree. I think there’s, there’s opportunities with the right companies to get that training over time and still move into those skilled positions.

Ryan Lillibridge  19:30

You know, we have those, we have apprenticeship programs for a build team through our electrician. We’re allowing employees to go through a robot training program. We recognize that we’re a bridge to someone’s goal. So there’s training that’s part of that bridge and building that bridge. So that’s been employees that are trying different jobs across the board. We’ve got elementary kids schools that we take on tours for our facility. We’re plugged into local colleges doing internships and co ops and then we have apprenticeship programs as well. So I do think there’s a sense of ownership through an employer to make that training accessible to employees. And that’s a that’s a way that you skill up your team, right? I mean, you want to continue to invest in the team and make sure that they have the tools they need to be successful. Right.

Damon Pistulka  20:18

Yeah. Yeah. So cool.

Curt Anderson  20:20

Definitely shows the success here admission. And so we’re gonna dive into this, you know, and let’s uncover right there. You know, number one, just the enormous amount of opportunities for young people with technology, 3d printing, CAD tech, you know, computers, I mean, it’s not, you know, not our grandma and grandpa’s manufacturing anymore. Is it? Ryan? It’s a little a little bit different than what it used to be different. So that’s eight and have a grab that comment there from Sammy. Daymond she says, Man preach it from the rooftops right to me. Yeah. Happy Friday, guys.

Damon Pistulka  20:52

Thanks, me. Thanks, Amy. Oh, all right. So

Curt Anderson  20:55

let’s dive in. You know, and maybe a better question, you know, so for folks, you know, hey, wonderful for kids going to college. It’s amazing. However, there are opportunities and tons of alternatives, where before it was like, you’re almost shamed if you didn’t go to college. Now there are, you know, maybe a better question might be like, hey, when you graduate from high school, how are you going to go out and make the world a better place? So speaking of that question, right there, Ryan? How tell us? How does mission, make the world a better place? We’re talking about a lot of automation, you’re talking, you’re telling us a lot of things that are going on with work development, that type of thing? Take a deep dive, and then we have a little show and tell that we’re going to do but just share with everybody who and what is mission design and automation? Sure,

Ryan Lillibridge  21:36

sure. Mission designs a company, right? I think so. We keep good company. So when I say we’re a company, we keep good company, you have company over to your house. Company has people. So with that, we want to have good people on our team, great people on our team that are committed to each other, and to the customers. So we say that every single week, when they stand up, as we do a weekly stand up with their team, we say, help each other, take care of each other, take care of the customer do the right thing. And that means a lot of different things for our business, right? So for us, there’s ways that we make the world better for individuals one at a time. Because usually, that’s typically what you work with. So for us, if someone’s going to buy automation, that often is there a big career decision, right? So I’m gonna buy a piece of equipment, whether I’m a small company, and I’ve got my home mortgage to pick up this piece of equipment. So I’m leveraging my own cash flow and my own money to trust that you’re going to deliver something that makes me more money in the future. That’s a big responsibility for us to take on. Right? It’s, yeah, you’re getting somebody to give us that trust and that confidence that you’re going to take care of me. And when I, when I put this piece of equipment in, I’m going to come out better than I was. So that’s whether a small company or large company, for some of the larger companies what that means for that individual could be if it goes, well, I’m getting a promotion, production is going well, my customers happy, I look good to my boss. All these things go really well. It changes the dynamic of their career. Yeah, you don’t make a good choice there. And it doesn’t go well. What happens is, career can go a different direction, right? So maybe there’s a motion that happens or production doesn’t go well. And you’re getting phone calls at 2am. Because working right? So they’re big decisions that impact people’s lives every day, day in and day out, just on the equipment side of what we do as a business. But we’re, as a business, I think we feel there’s a responsibility for education. So we’re tied in with local universities, we’re having those students in, we’re having an apprenticeship program. So how do we make our employees more valuable? We hope for them to continue to stay with us. But then there’s also the we’re part of a community here, right? Are everyone in our building, all of our value walks out the door. On Friday afternoon, Scott, our CEO says the value entire value of the company leaves on Friday, and they go home to families, cows, pigs, horses, kids, games, whatever, right? So they’re all part of the community. And we as a company want to be part of that community. So we’re very highly involved with the community. And Sam is on here so I can shout out like her and our impact team Community Impact team, we got a number of strong volunteers in that team that make decisions for us as a company on how do we involve ourselves with the community? Where do we invest time just fundraisers through the year to do financial donations, and then it’s also where do we give our time? And why is that important? How do we give our time into the community? And the community gives back to us. So I think there’s so many facets of an organization that are important along the lines of employees first, and customers, how do we take care of them? And then community and broader families? What are we doing there? So just a lot of things and a lot of ways that I feel we can continue to make the world a better place. And it’s just really fun and exciting to be able to do that every day. Right? Man?

Curt Anderson  25:26

Yeah. Damia. Ready. Mike Waller what man, it was that out there. So I want to break that down. There’s two separate things going on right there that you just said, Ryan, and you shared that was with me the other day and think about this, you know, I don’t care if you’re selling software, heavy duty equipment, you know, that person that makes that’s making that buying decision is putting their potential career on the line, right? I’m like, let that sink in for a minute. You know, if they’re making a massive capital investment, their career, like you just said, Ryan, that is so profound. And I love how you guys come in with such a high level of integrity, in really honor and respect, like we understand how important this decision is. And you’ve been shared with me the other day, like, hey, if this is not a great fit, I’m going to tell that customer,

Ryan Lillibridge  26:11

right? Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s true, Curt, I mean, we have just so much experience in our team, we’re so blessed to have the people on our team that we have that been around automation, for a lot of years have seen a lot of different things. We never want to be in a that’s the way we always do it mentality. I don’t think there’s any of that. But there’s a, we’ve seen that work in that network. And I think it’s important to share that expertise with a customer, whether or not they decide to buy from us or not. So there have been opportunities where the customer is wanting to move into automation, and they want to do these steps and the conversations around man, unless you put some locators or sub tabs or some gap separators into that part, this process, no matter what we do, isn’t going to produce a good product for you. So as much as I’d like to work with you, and I’d like to help you on this, I’ve got to be responsible for my company’s integrity, and where our name shows up. And our name, we want to show up on things that are running good production and doing things well. So if we see those flags in the process, we want to bring them up and want to talk to the customer through that and say, Hey, maybe you’re not gonna go with us, or maybe we’re gonna pass on this. But if you’re working with anybody, they should be able to answer these key questions for you. These are engineering areas that we see a gap in as we’re looking through your part of your process. I’m telling you, I can’t do it the way you want us to do it. So I’m going to, I’m going to pass. But if anyone’s telling you, they can do it, make sure you and ask these questions and feel very confident on the answers. So yeah, we feel that’s our responsibility to do that, rather than just trying to put a machine in and hope that it works and tell them later when we knew ahead of time. Yeah, it’s our job to make sure that we’re kind of a Sherpa or a guide through some of this automation process, because it’s new to some people, or there’s just the talent on our team has seen things that work and don’t work, and we’re open to share that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  28:17

That’s, that’s awesome, dude. Because you know, even if they go someplace else, they’re still going to have a good feeling about your company, because you told them straight. This is what it is, somebody else may come with a different approach that solves those problems. Somebody else may say they can do it, but they can be the ones getting the calls at 2am in the morning, but you’ve left them with a good feeling no matter what they do after that. And sometimes that information.

Ryan Lillibridge  28:43

Yeah, sometimes someone’s creative, and they found a way to do it that we didn’t see. So well. Kudos to them. That was a good idea. That’s the fun part about this industry, too, is you get to have good peers in the industry that we say maybe like a sibling rivalry, right? If we’re, yeah, we have each other’s back as the industry and we want each other to do well. But if we’re in a foot race, we’re going to try to win, right? So when some someone does better, it’s like, cool. Those are good idea. Right? Yeah.

Curt Anderson  29:15

Yeah. Phenomenal. I’m going to give a shout out to your CEO Scott and I believe this your 20 year anniversary drive that correct? Did you guys realize Yeah. Right. And so Alright, so if, and I’m losing track. And

Damon Pistulka  29:27

first of all, first of all, we got a couple of comments, and I say, hey, it’s all saltpeter. And hello, Muhammad stopped and said, Hi, thanks for stopping by guys. And if you’re, if you’re out there listening, let us know you’re there. Let us know where you’re listening from. That’s awesome as well. Yeah, we’re hitting the top of the hour already. And we’re just getting warmed up.

Curt Anderson  29:44

We’re just getting warmed up. So yeah, drop a note. Let us know that you’re out there. Give a big hello to Ryan connect with Ryan on LinkedIn. He and his team are just doing amazing work. If you geek out on automation, this is definitely the place to be. Now. What I love is diving into company culture. And so I just kudos a stack of like, hey, all of our value leaves on Friday afternoon that I’ve outlined before that is powerful, powerful line. We’re going to do a little show and tell I’m going to tie but before we go there, Ryan, share with the folks. Pop quiz. When you started with the company at Mission, how many employees like how many teammates? Did you have ballpark?

Ryan Lillibridge  30:22

Sure, were maybe around 45? Or sorry?

Curt Anderson  30:25

45. Okay. And that was a few years ago, you’ve been there about four years, I guess? How many teammates do you have today? I can’t remember. We’re in the 150 range, but I’m sorry, how many 150 range. So you’ve grown? You like you’ve almost quadrupled. 3x

Damon Pistulka  30:44

Plus,

Curt Anderson  30:45

you’ve almost quadrupled and gone from 45 to like, how curious minds mind to know like, people love to hear it and success leaves clues. Right. Give us some give us some clues. What has been what, in your opinion, you’ve grown? You’ve grown with the company, you’re now vice president? What’s been one of the keys of success from your perspective?

Ryan Lillibridge  31:08

Man, I would I have to give a shout out to Scott as well. Because that statement around our value and our people we can leave on Friday. Yeah. is the number one thing right? Just recognizing that the team that we have here. None of us do this alone. None of us do without good people. So building a good strong team through strong hiring processes through good interviews through talking about culture, talking about values, having candid conversations with each other. It’s it’s really about being human and holistic, and, and open. And I think those are the things that are important. I did go to Scotland time, we talked about maybe putting a talent acquisition person on our team. And I said talent acquisition, he’s like, we don’t hire talent, we hire people with families. So it’s words matter. Every day, and how we use them is important because talent is different than people talent, maybe a contractor, you hire him for a short period of time, but a person comes with, they come with baggage, they come to reality, they come with families that come with different things that we as a company need to be responsible for and help with. So I think that helps a lot with that. And then also just talking about what do we do? How do we take care of each other? Often, right, and a frequency of communication. So we’re not perfect. But that’s part of what being human is, is not being perfect, and trying to learn from it. So I think that’s a key to our growth. And then just being honest with our customers about when we can help them when we can’t, and how we can and how we can’t, is important to we don’t want to oversell an idea and have it work. So we want to make sure that it’s going to work well. And that we’re on the get the customer promotion side. So we talked about that often. Are we working to get the customer a raise or a promotion? Are they gonna be successful with this? That’s that’s a lot of our foundational conversation. And when you do those things, people recognize it. They buy interests they buy in confidence. So if they know you’re gonna steer them, right, they’re gonna come back for more. So those are the pretty key tenets that we talk about often. Right? Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  33:26

Yeah, good stuff. We got a comment from Harry on a put on here says How ironic that someone who works in robotics gets the human side of culture more than most

Curt Anderson  33:37

perfect, man, that is a that’s so Alright, with that one. Let’s sit back and I’m going to pull I’m going to grab a video here for you. Let’s

Damon Pistulka  33:45

do this doing a video because I think it’d be cool seeing that. Oh, do you,

Curt Anderson  33:49

Damon, How’s that look on your end look pretty good. Looks good. Let’s

Damon Pistulka  33:52

see. Let’s see what it does when you start playing it. Yeah, hit there you go hit the button, make it bigger if it hasn’t already. Cool.

Sami Birch  34:11

mission continues to grow and learn the latest technologies. And through this, we get to work with some really cool smart people across the US. It’s so important for us to marry technology and people together to build solutions that make the world a better place.

Ryan Lillibridge  34:24

I think the role that we play to make our customers successful is being curious and inquisitive, asking the right questions, and getting to the root of what’s necessary what they need. Right. And that takes a lot of perspective. So we need to be talking to maintenance and quality and what are the production metrics and and what do you stay up at night with all those kinds of questions help us build that statement around what’s needed. From the get go. Our team really focuses on the fact that we actually collaborate with our customers throughout the entire duration of the relationship and each cific projects, we want to make them feel involved. So one of the things that we have the most fun with is the process of whiteboarding.

35:07

So we have everybody from mom and pop shops to large companies, they’re looking to automate anything that they can. When that labor shortage hit, a lot of these companies almost went under. So your only option was to turn to automation. So it’s just very exciting to see everybody getting into the industry these days.

35:26

Michigan is a place that people are striving to work with, because of their integrity. And because of the way that our team has brought their experience of many years to solve the problems of today, working

35:41

at mission design is a great experience. It’s fun every day to come into work, be around passionate people who care about what they’re doing, and care about who they’re doing it with, and care about our customers and what their needs. Our

Ryan Lillibridge  35:53

mission exists to deliver a great experience and solutions through a culture of innovation and teamwork.

36:01

missin exist, to make people’s lives better on a daily basis, learning and understanding customer needs, being able to partner with them, solve the problems, implement it, for a better outcome with confidence and expertise makes a great integrator, we’ve been

36:18

taking on more and more interesting projects. And each new project that I’m on, I’m learning new things, my mentors are teaching me a bunch. And I’m always excited for new challenges. So I’m just excited to see what we tackle next. I’ve been in the automation industry for one year, 12

36:35

years, 26 years. 27 years. 24 years. 20 years. 34 years, six years. 31 years, nine years.

36:45

15 years.

Ryan Lillibridge  36:46

Not long enough. There’s so much to learn. 17 years

36:50

33 years in counting

Curt Anderson  36:58

Kurt, you’re a pro. That’s awesome, man. That was so cool. So Damon, how about

Damon Pistulka  37:04

I know I just look at the solutions you guys are producing. And it’s just so cool to watch the way things are. You know, it’s like you said you get to you get to experience a new series of you know, the Discovery Channel, how it’s made every time you go to work. So cool. Love

Curt Anderson  37:23

1. You see a I Whitney just sums it up, right? So for our friends on podcast, she just dropped Fire, fire, fire fire.

Damon Pistulka  37:30

So when I said hi, we can’t see who it is on LinkedIn. But thanks for saying hi. Yeah, happy

Curt Anderson  37:36

Friday, guys. And again, we’re here with Brian Lillibridge. From mission, design and automation, great, amazing, wonderful manufacture here in the States. And so Ryan, what am I want to dive in here? I know and be mindful of your time because man, you are helping a lot of people out there. Let’s talk about we had a great conversation. And you touched on that a little bit earlier. And I want I’d love to take a deep dive before we let you go. That small manufacturer out there, okay, you know, no secret, you know, some, you know, labor shortage is was a thing through COVID. So not completely out of it. I just read this week, there’s something like 1.8 million job openings that can’t be filled in manufacturing. It’s crazy, right? And so automation, you know, brings efficiency, it brings autonomy, it just it’s so dynamic what it can do. But some of the small manufacturers just maybe out of, you know, not knowing feel left out of the party, right? Maybe I don’t really want to can we dispel that myth a little bit, let’s I was just at a small manufacturer yesterday, I was with one of the MEPs manufacturing extension partnerships, and they came into small manufacturer, and they’re talking about, hey, we can talk to you about automation, we can talk to you about some solutions, even as a small manufacturer that you can take advantage of. Let’s talk to that person that’s 50 employees. And last maybe like you said earlier, they only have 10. Right? What are some options? What are some solutions? Where can they start in how Let’s reduce the overwhelm? Where can they get started to dispel that myth? They’re out of the automation party? Yeah,

Ryan Lillibridge  39:06

I think it’s, it’s important to recognize that in in the US, we have this wonderful entrepreneurship culture, right. That is, the reason we have what we have in many areas of our country is because people are willing to take a risk and create something new. And remember that we make things here, right? So those smaller companies are the ones making a lot of the things that we see somewhere in the supply chain. So kudos to all of them that are jumping in and doing that and taking that initiative and the risk with it right. I think how can they get started in automation is talk to an integrator, right? Find an integrator or partner that you trust, whether it be us or somebody else, and get connected there, have them come out to your facility, walk through the facility. Just ask questions. We do this pretty regular where someone says I don’t even know where to start. I just know I can’t find people, or the skill set coming in doesn’t read tape measures, or all these different things that are barriers. And they’re saying, but I’m getting orders, I gotta make them. I feel like if if I can keep continue to supply my customers more orders, there’s room for me me to grow, right. So we’ll walk through will identify areas that they can get started talk through some of those options that are maybe a lower entry point to start with, and get them rolling with some just some exposure to it, right. And some of that, as some of that’s come out to our place and put your hands on a robot, you can touch and feel and and take away a little bit of that. That fear around it, right? Come on out program, one, let’s see, you know, we can show you how easy it is. Or, here’s a class that we have. So it’s a three or four day class and you’ll be moving a robot around by yourself. And it’s not much different than the CNC machine that you have, that you’re putting G codes into. So you’re already moving servos around, these are servos with different connection points. So don’t let the robot company as I said that.

Damon Pistulka  41:11

But it’s but it’s true. I mean, you’re by getting exposure, seeing an integrator going into your facility, seeing how these things happen, you can then do that. A bit of that, thinking about that yourself. But if you’re still sitting there and you don’t see it, bring someone in. Yeah, they might say, hey, you know, you really can help, or they can help and you go holy heck, that just put this. So now these people can go do that. And I didn’t want them doing what this robots gonna do anyway, you know, because you see some of these applications that you can do with the robotics, and we’re really helping our employees by not having to do some of the things that are physical or more dangerous, or more repetitive, just because the long term kind of things that it just makes the whole operation so much better. Yeah, yeah, it’s just, it’s so cool.

Ryan Lillibridge  42:06

And some of this stuff has simplicity to program now where it’s, you can bring that solution in. And it’s another tool in your toolbox, you may not run it every day, from a capacity standpoint, you’re not making a million automotive parts and run in three shifts with uptime being your top priority, it’s, I need a tool, because I’m gonna make 40 these parts. And it’s, it’ll be quicker for me to program that into a robot and set up a fixture to run the 40 than if I have the team put labor on it. Meanwhile, they can set it up and they can be doing another job as well. So now we get this added effectiveness with my team. And anyone on the team can use that tool, right? It’s kind of Yeah, it’s kind of the decision between do I make it on a bridge port? So everyone’s familiar with that. So to machine it by hand on a bridge port? Or do I take some time and write G codes and put it into CNC machine, is maybe the way to think about some of those decisions with that tool is, you know what the quantity is to the point where I’m going to do it in the CNC machine, because it makes sense, I’ll do that set up once and I’ll run these parts or, you know, I’m just gonna jump on a Bridgeport, I’ll do it that way. So I think a number of these places are working in that manner. And it’s just kind of showing that there are tools available that can add the effectiveness or that accessibility for your operations. And then other customers, it’s maybe quality, right? The quality is the the key thing for them that they want to make sure they’re good quality parts. And it’s a value add to the part and then an inspection. And now the data you collect back helps you see a tool where or different types of things that you can feed back into the system, right? So understanding their needs or solutions. Like I said in the video, what keeps them up at night. Just a good starting point. And then you come to the automation candy store here. Look at what you want, get some ideas, and then go from there, right? Yeah, yeah.

Damon Pistulka  44:06

And it’s, you know, you talked about several things. You’re just breezing over some of this stuff. But you know, when you talk about consistency, quality, and actually, in some cases, better products, because the experience I’ve seen with like welding robots, just like people just can’t weld as good as a robot. Right? You get stronger weld, you get any more consistent and you don’t miss spots, you know, just things like that. Or when you look at, I was just watching because I, I’m a geek, yes, I watch robotic stuff, do things. And the other day I saw a robot putting on a bonding adhesive on one of this plate and two things go together and like I in my lifetime could practice my entire life and not put it on as consistently as that thing. Maybe one time I could, but I can’t do it. 24/7 right and This is a thing and now it did, I think it was Matt goosy was just sharing to something about a robot, a robot that they have in their CNC shop that goes in and grabs, puts a part in, grabs the other one out or would do that in Santa run process. But you think about how that leverages their skilled people. So now, now, Damon, who can only run one machine, or maybe two machines, now Damon might be able to handle six because all they have to do is just if there’s a light or get the parts out of a tray, that because it’s just so much efficiency and quality they can drive. So

Ryan Lillibridge  45:36

cool stuff. I’m just trying to figure out if you’ve been in our facility, because we’ve got a robot doing some dispensing that we’re working on for possibility there. So I was like, and if you’ve been here listening to

Damon Pistulka  45:49

these kinds of things are just as Kurt was said, small manufacturers have this problem. Large manufacturers have these problems. And when you see, you look at something like the automotive industry, you’re you’re clearly near and dear to that where you’re located in United States, and people don’t realize that a lot of the quality increases have come through design, and then automating some of this stuff in visual inspection. Even after people like if I was doing something the visual inspection or the there’s just so much that the that kind of robotics and automation has helped.

Curt Anderson  46:22

Now theming I’m probably going to show my age here, Ryan, you might be way too young to know this one. But Damon, I’ll anybody if I was you, Ryan, I just be showing I remember I Love Lucy on the line, and she like, keep up and she’s eating half of them would be just showing that on replay over and over Ryan. That’s

Damon Pistulka  46:42

a good one. That’s a we’ve got

Curt Anderson  46:44

our dear friend Sammy has a comment here. So let’s read it to our friends if they’re on podcast,

Damon Pistulka  46:49

awesome to hear about how light automation tools can supplement when there isn’t the volume for large, complex systems. But a robotic solution is still needed due to labor quality, and other challenges. And that that is exactly the fact right. There’s something that a person may not be able to do. I mean, or for a lot of different reasons. I was, yeah, I geek out over this stuff. I was like I would just I mean, I’d seriously do I seriously do. I was just reading about the Hanford Nuclear waste facility here in Washington State. Obviously, you can’t have people in the room with high gear. So the robotics in this stuff is just absolutely incredible. But anyway, I

Ryan Lillibridge  47:29

think the other part we didn’t touch on at all is just employee retention and development. Right? Yeah. And I get to work in this place with no robotics or, um, what did you work today? Like the dinner table conversation at home? Yeah. About this at our place, right? What’s the dinner conversation? Oh, you know, today, we got a robot in for doing this process. Maybe it’s dispensing a bead. And I got to be the first one to program it and set up, set it up. And now we’re running robotics. And now I’m now I’m doing that, and I was, you know, I was the person doing the dispensing before. Now I’m doing setups, and they’re helping think through product design and dispense paths. And I’m programming a robot is, is my new job description that I that I get to go talk about at Windsor at home, wherever it is right, you can increase pridefulness and work sometimes with that technology exposure. So yeah.

Damon Pistulka  48:29

We got another comment in here that I want to make sure we get offices, do you go into businesses that are already have that already have automation and offer to check the whole process and make it more efficient? Is that a service that you provide?

Ryan Lillibridge  48:43

Yeah, we have a service team or depending on what it is and what level of adjustment it may need. We can do that as well, right? Just kind of walk through, point out some suggestions. Talk through efficiencies, I will say we’re not we’re not like an industrial engineering company. If you want like value stream mapping, process flow process simulation to find bottlenecks and really dive into existing machine and tweak and tune. I’ve got some strong partners, I would I can recommend for that. But we can help there, right. And you figure that out. And if there’s automation around that or adjustments on the automation, our teams around production all the time, right?

49:27

Yeah. Yeah. So

Curt Anderson  49:28

cool. And one for our friends out there. So we partner very closely with the MEPS manufacturing partnerships and that’s another great starting point and what they do is they can come in and give many of them will give some type of free assessment and then what they’re going to do is then connect you with those subject matter experts like our friend Ryan admission, or maybe somebody else was industrial engineers, but you know, any of our manufacturing friends out there, check out the manufacturing extension partnerships now, Damon Ryan I don’t know if you guys know this. I got I have to do this. I got up I got To come back to our friend Sammy bird, Sammy, man, just man number respect I have received me now. You guys said earlier in the program, Ryan that you went from 43 to 150. Now it’s no coincidence that when Mark when when marketing was turned over to Sammy Burch I think things started to really pop. Do I have that? Like, is there any coincidence there? I’m just asking.

Ryan Lillibridge  50:22

Yeah, no, there’s no coincidence there. Sammy is fantastic, right? marketing guru is your director of marketing. I can’t shut her out. Hey, let

Curt Anderson  50:34

us give Sammy all the credit. So Sammy, triple almost quadrupled his company. So see me all sorts of kudos. But in all seriousness, you know, Damon, we’d love that line out teach the competition in what did Ryan talk about? Like they’re doing, you know, workshops, if you go to their website, again, you know, certainly encourage you guys connect with Ryan on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn, go to their website, they have web design, they have case studies, they have white papers, success stories, you just go to their learning center. And there’s all sorts of information there. And Sammy, here’s Sammy. She says, Hey, hi, guys. So sending that out to you.

Damon Pistulka  51:12

It’s all teamwork. It’s all teams. It says,

Curt Anderson  51:15

Hey, teamwork makes the dream work. Right. So you know what? And Damon, I have to do this. I you know, let’s do this. Right. We’re going to Ryan, we’re going to do this for Scott. In all seriousness, what a sediment like, Tell tell CEOs right here. How ironic that someone that works in robotics gets the human side of culture more than most. That’s a major drop the mic moment right there. And kudos to you guys for creating such an inspirational what a dynamic culture that you’ve created there. I could keep you here all day. You know, Daymond just geeking out like crazy about patient. Yeah, let’s start winding down eight and Allen’s here today,

Damon Pistulka  51:53

Alan, Alan, how you doing, man? Good to see you happy Friday.

Ryan Lillibridge  51:58

We can do another three hours I got, ya know, another

Curt Anderson  52:00

three hours. So Right. For folks that are just, regardless of size are small manufacturers, mid sized manufacturers, large manufacturers? How do they reach connect with you how give us a starting point, give us some information to how they can connect

Ryan Lillibridge  52:14

with you. Sure, sure. You can connect, there’s a form on our website for connecting with us. So form fill or connect with me directly on LinkedIn. Either way, I’m happy to connect and chat and talk. So awesome. Awesome.

Curt Anderson  52:32

As you can tell man, just there’s, you know, the integrity, the man, just the expertise, the passion. Everybody wants to be on a winning team, you know, like it’s, you can do these things alone, right. And so to partner and align with a company, especially the growth, the explosive growth that you guys have had through COVID is just so impressive, so admirable. So kudos to you, your entire team to Scott for his leadership. And so we just continue wishing you guys just massive, massive success. Damon, take aways thoughts, what’s going through your mind right now?

Damon Pistulka  53:06

I just think this stuff is super cool. That’s all I just did this is that I mean, because just think about it, the the the ability to adopt the technology has gotten so much easier for the normal manufacture. Huge deal. The struggle to keep enough talent around enough great people around because of retirement and other things. Is is a challenge in manufacturing. And I think that, you know, years ago, people were talking about, oh, automation is gonna steal jobs. And I think you know, what automation is creating great jobs, and keeping our companies in business. I think that’s what we should be talking about automation is doing because a lot of companies wouldn’t be in business anymore without it. So yeah, that’s just I just think it’s fun to hear. And you guys, I mean, back to what Harry said, the culture you’re using to grow your business is incredible,

Curt Anderson  53:58

right? So you go back 200 years, like the Luddites, were fighting the machinery, the technology, they’re going to take our jobs that technology is this. I don’t know. I feel comfortable saying it is not going to take our jobs. It is just creating vast amounts of opportunity. Ryan, we’re gonna wind down I have one last question for you that I’m going to ask today. Damon, are you are you are you sit down? Are you ready?

Damon Pistulka  54:19

I’m ready for this.

Curt Anderson  54:20

All right, Ryan. I didn’t I didn’t prep you for this one either. But if you if anybody catches the show knows this question that’s coming at you. Are you a baseball fan?

Ryan Lillibridge  54:29

I don’t watch a lot of baseball. Sorry. But yeah,

Curt Anderson  54:32

you have three sons. You you get

Damon Pistulka  54:35

the game, right. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  54:37

So what what are your boys? What? Are they fans of a team? Do you guys have a team in?

Ryan Lillibridge  54:42

Oh, my boys are into lacrosse right now

Curt Anderson  54:45

during the lacrosse. Alright, so let’s, let’s go here. So let’s just let’s put, Let’s hypothetically, just ask him for a friend hypothetically. Let’s say you’re playing for the Tigers, right? And it’s Bob of the night. It’s a tie score game. You’re playing that Reddit hated White Sox. And the it’s time of night, two outs. There’s somebody on second base and the manager turns down the bench and says, Hey, Ryan, grab your bat, grab your helmet get up there. And please hit in the winning run, will you? So you grab your bat, grab your helmet, you’re walking up to the plate as you walk up to the plate. What is your walk up song?

Ryan Lillibridge  55:23

Oh, my walk up song. Yeah, no, I think mine’s gonna be a win, win, win win. That’s the one we listen to with my boys sometime. So nice.

Curt Anderson  55:38

I thank you for playing my little game. That’s a question that we just love to ask. And so, Ryan, thank you. How about guys hanging out with us, Sammy, thank you for making this happen. Right, Ryan, thanks. For your time. I want a big round of applause for what’s going on at mission design. And thank you, Ryan, for sharing your passion, your truth. Big shout outs to the team there. Anybody out there that needs any assistance? Any questions? You have an automation. This is the man that you want to talk to reach out the mission. They are here to help Daymond this was fire dude, I told you about it right there. Whitney says Whoo, right. Everything’s on fire. So I guess we’re gonna close it out. Thank you. God bless you guys. I Daymond like we always say, Hey, we got either Tiger here. Yeah, I saw

56:23

that. I have that. That’s a good one, too. I like yeah, that’d

Damon Pistulka  56:26

be a good one, too. Yeah,

Ryan Lillibridge  56:27

I do want to shout out like our whole team, please do the work every day. Man it is it is the team doing the work every day making decisions at their, at the different levels. That interface with the customer making the right calls each and every day across all the 1000s of small things that happen in our company. It’s the team and the behaviors of commitment to each other and the customers that really is our success. So shout out to the whole team. So cool. dropped

Curt Anderson  57:01

the mic right there. So guys, as we love to say just go out and be someone’s inspiration just like this guy here. Ryan is and the entire team at Mission. Damon. I told you this is gonna be a good one.

Damon Pistulka  57:14

I told you. Yeah. All right, take it away, Damon. All right. Well, thanks, Ryan for being here today and talking about about mission and what you guys are doing helping companies you know, just automate manufacturing and make manufacturing even more interesting place to work. And now if you got in this late go back to the beginning and start from that start from there because man and when you you know learn about culture, you’re going to learn about automation, gonna learn about mission and how they’re helping people and see all these awesome comments that we had here today. Thanks, everyone that commented, thanks, all of you that said hi. are listening, not commenting. We appreciate you being here today. We will be back again next week. Thanks, Ryan. We’ll catch up offline. Thanks, everyone. All right. Thank

Ryan Lillibridge  58:00

you guys.