Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Sneha Kumari

Curt Anderson 0:01
Hey guys, thank God it’s Monday. Welcome to manufacture Monday motivation. Damon Pistulka. Thank handsome dev over their little birthday boy from yesterday. How are you doing?

Damon Pistulka 0:11
I’m doing great, Kurt, how are you doing?

Curt Anderson 0:14
I just I couldn’t possibly be any better rated the moment and hung them were like two besties. So Damon, we have a really amazing, incredible guest today that I want to introduce. I think she’s like right over here somewhere, right? This wonderful dynamic person. Sneha Kumari right that I say that right? That I could see your first name your full first name for me, please.

Sneha Kumari 0:40
snicker and I know like it starts with two consonants. So it’s not the easiest name to pronounce or this or that. But it said Sneha. Yes.

Curt Anderson 0:49
Hi. Welcome to our little tiny program here. We are so honored for you to be here. You’ve been a dear friend. We hit it off from day one. You know what, Damon, we have this little common bond, this little connection? So see it? Where’d you get your master’s degree? Yeah, I can’t remember. It’s work. University of Pittsburgh. Great. My mother got her master’s degree there. So that’s we had this little little thing you know, you know, Mama’s boy that I am. So we had this little bind. So hey, let’s take a deep dive. You are a supply chain guru. In our language supply chain enthusiast, you’re an expert. And so let’s let’s go back in time a little bit. Let’s hear a little bit about Sneha. Let’s hear about your background lead up to like that University of Pitt degree, let’s hear about your what you have going on?

Sneha Kumari 1:33
Absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for having me today. I, I cannot tell you how excited and honored I feel I have. I’ll start with start from the start. So I started as an engineer, so I’m an electronics and instrumentation engineer. And then I started my career with Honeywell and then moved to Schneider Electric before I got my MBA. And it’s this a little fun story there. Like, you know, when I started when I was choosing, like what, you know, when I did my when I applied for my engineering, and there were a lot of majors that I could run as specific fields that I could choose from everyone was going for computer science at the time when I did it. And I was like, I mean, do not judge me. When I say this, I chose electronics because I didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing out there. And like, nothing different. I’m not going to go for computer science. And that’s exactly having no idea of what instrumentation meant. At the time, it was a very new subject that was being introduced Specially in India. I was like, I was like, You know what, I want to do something different want to learn something different. So let’s do something else. And so while a lot of my friends went for computer science, I actually chose electronics and instrumentation and it was it turned out to be a lot of fun. And eventually, like I learned and what I loved about it was I did my major there. And then at Honeywell, I got to do something that I majored in, how exciting in people like Not, not not getting, you know, not being able to work in the area that they have studied on and I think it’s sometimes it’s a shame sometimes you just you learned a lot of stuff. How about seeing it live in action, or getting experience there. So I definitely enjoyed doing that when I started at Honeywell, and then I work with Schneider Electric which is where also my love for whole. This whole green thing I would say is associated as well Schneider is actually leading their initiatives when it comes to green and sustainable. But anyway, so there There goes my experience and then I did my MBA I came here well my husband did his MBA from University of Pittsburgh so that influenced you know, he influences me a lot whether it’s personally or professionally so he had some great things done There a lot of great impact the professor’s so I was like okay, let’s do it. I came here I did my MBA and then I work for crane, which is a manufacturing company and full blown into supply chain so I was into supply chain a little bit when I was at Schneider because I started in quality one way so I started my career in quality and then since I was doing a lot of r&d a lot of supplier in interactions and then how bringing them in and then actually delivering it and via like doing that like back then I didn’t even know all of this was supply chain all of this that I’m like you know, it’s taking me somewhere. And then I did my majors in MBA like in supply chain, and then in three and I have to thank them for all the opportunities that gave they gave me because I worked from like I work from Strategic Procurement to the most like to the end which is logistics and a little bit of reverse logistics also because of the Army’s and customer returns and how to improve that processes. So having being able to work in this full umbrella of demand planning, inventory planning, warehouse management, logistics, import, export compliance, all like it’s great, right because now I know acquire inventory manager can be at loggerheads with an operations manager because they’re fighting over inventory. Because if they don’t have shared goals, you’re actually not really working towards a shared business vision. So I think that’s something unique that I have learned because I worked in so many different aspects of supply chain. But yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s pretty much where I started, how I started and how I actually started loving supply chain and stumbled, I would say in manufacturing, and I’m so happy like in one of your shows, I think you said that all the cool kids are doing manufacturing today. So I’m so happy that I stumbled upon manufacturing, and I’m proud of that whole. Like, it’s cool, now, it’s fine. And you know, the best part of being here, it’s the change that we are going through the revolution that we have seen over the years and how we are, you know, more and more focused on improving automation and learning and improving, deploying tech and things like that. So I’m happy and part of this community.

Damon Pistulka 6:01
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. Well, it is it really is something though, what you’re talking about, and we we’re so happy that we get occurred and I get to be part of it and watch the way that manufacturing is changing. It’s just it’s just something to be a part of it and so young people like yourself taken over. Amen.

Curt Anderson 6:16
It’s good that we’re a little bit older and maybe hopefully a little bit more secure with ourselves because man do I feel like an underachiever, right, this Oh, yeah. This is absolutely awesome. I just want to recap a couple quick things. And then we got to keep this momentum going. So you know, you work with the who’s who Schneider. Honeywell, you have your master’s from from Pitt. So this is just absolutely phenomenal. We love chatting about women demand manufacturing, diversity manufacturing, for you are just absolutely crushing it. And I love how you chose that path into electronics. Anybody out there listening, please connect with Sneha she is absolutely just a breath of fresh air salt of the earth. Just wonderful woman. Awesome. I have to throw that in. Absolutely awesome. So, one step back, you are such an incredible inspiration you are so it’s such a success at such a young age. Who was your hero growing ups? And you’re like, how just one little sketch, who was your hero growing up that really fueled the fire to get where you are today.

Sneha Kumari 7:13
So you know, it’s so I have to so you know, my dad was my dad worked and he’s no more. But my dad worked in government and a government organization and in India, and my mom still runs a school so she runs our school. So she is like, she had done her masters like way back then. And she has done double masters. So definitely I knew like okay, I have to do my my father used to always you have like, your mom is so much more literate than I am. So you got to follow, like take all the lessons from her no education, but it was all fun with dad. And with mom, it was all about you know, Academy exam, you know what your career whatever good going to do. So I knew I always knew that I had to be masters. But trust me, like, being a manufacturing isn’t something that I you know, like nobody was telling me to do this I that I say I said like I stumbled upon it. What I did know always was that I had to do I had to be an engineer. And I think it’s it’s something it’s like it’s being an engineer is something like a very common theme, especially in India, like everyone wants to pursue that dream, I would say. And so I always knew that I had to do that. But I will do this in manufacturing. That wasn’t something that I was thinking about i as i said i stumbled upon it. Honeywell back then like it’s, it’s a home automation company, right? And I worked in the SCADA I’m not I think, you know, about SCADA, and, like the, the controls, and so I started my career in SCADA and DCS, but I have to say that, I think not like that whole procedure and thing comes from work from my mom, like she she has, like we have seen a lot like vile growing up with the internet, like she has been very tenuous and how she grew up grew up and you know, the challenges we face, but I have to give it to someone who I started my job when I started my career as an intern, there was my mentor who actually showed me what you know, quality was and how do we go about it, what kind of certifications you shouldn’t be taking, I have to give it to him because I started my career with with under his guidance. And he kind of showed me around taught me around me made was very patient with me, like, you know, a college grad, not knowing anything much about you know what this whole corporate world looks like. So I would say I have to say too, I have to give it to him to the team, being very patient with someone super new and teaching me everything. And to the extent that in like I would say one and a half years I was leading that team single handedly the whole quality system. I couldn’t have done that with the you know, the work that they put on me so I have to I have to say his name is Sunil Krishnan And I’m not sure if he’s listening, I don’t know. But I have to give it to him because he was my first first mentor. Nice,

Curt Anderson 10:06
thank God for mentors and what an inspiration what a leap of faith you took to leave your leave where you grew up, come here to the United States brought your talent, your skill, set your energy, your passion, to US manufacturing. So thank you, God bless you there. Now on your LinkedIn profile, you have something called circular supply chain, buff, a circular such a supply chain buff, please enlighten us our crowd here, see what on earth is going on.

Sneha Kumari 10:36
It’s funny, it’s funny, but I mean, you know, I honestly could speak about this topic forever and ever and ever. And I have a for me, I’m not sure if you know about Deborah doll, but she is the founder of the organization, circular supply chain network that I volunteer for. And I have to thank her and actually share it too, because they taught me what sustainability really was. And then Deborah, for introducing me to this whole concept of circular supply chain, and how supply chains can save the world. We do we we have, we can actually save the world. So a lot of talks about you know, circular economy. So you have a lot of MacArthur organizations like leading this path, you have a lot of organizations talking about circular economy, what we don’t talk about, and I and I really feel that we need universities to talk about it, when they are teaching supply chains, like how supply chains can really power circular economy and make it happen. In simply like put in a very, very basic terms we all know about Lean, right? Lean is about reducing waste. And what circular supply chain talks about is monetizing waste. Just very, very quick difference. Meaning in when we do a Value Stream Mapping, we talk about value streams, and we talk about waste, right, we all know about everyone in manufacturing knows about value stream mapping. But when you do circular supply chain, you actually talk about two value streams, which is primary value streams. And now your waste becomes your secondary value stream. How because now your waste is could be, first of all, the goal is to extend the life shelf life of the materials you’re using to the extent you can, and then whatever waste has produced can it be used as an input to either your supply chain or someone else’s supply chain cannot happen. And certainly, like I give this example a lot, but I could like, you know, give more examples to like, for example, if you have a food industry and you have food waste coming out of you know, whatever you’re processing can that food waste be used in some apparel industry, for say, for sneaking or, you know, fabric, whatever. But I just do envision that in another decade or so we will have a marketplace where all of these industries could actually talk about what their ways are, and then I could go shop around for it. Right, so now suddenly reducing the pool on the planet. And you are also strategizing for how to bring secondary materials when you’re in procurement. That should be one of your goals like lesser use of virgin materials, and bringing more of the secondary materials to power your products. So as simple as that, but that it’s pretty much circular supply chains are interconnected systems that use secondary and renewable inputs to generate value. And while they’re maximizing resource use, you can find this on our website too, but we use about 100 billion tons of materials every year. And only 8.5% of it is used again. And if at this rate we keep going we’ll need actually two plans to support everything we use.

Damon Pistulka 13:47
This is this is really cool. And I know we weren’t going to talk about this long because this is something that I think is becoming more and more prevalent in manufacturing to because you really need to how need to understand how to monetize every single piece of your of your supply chain like you can because man when we were in machining and we were machining aerospace parts out of titanium, the scrap chips of titanium was worth like $40 a pound I mean we had to lock it up because people wait if we leave it outside and even in a gated area people would cut the fences and steal it right and and you know so these are the kinds of things that you can do and when you talk about food waste, there’s just so many other ways that you can you can monetize what’s coming out into your process

Sneha Kumari 14:34
you gave him to give an absolutely great example and I’ve seen that like our scrap first of all you know value scrap I’ve seen some smaller industries not actually even reporting scrap it’s not good for how you function and you know how you run out your operations anyways yeah, you know, you know come to your scrap see what’s in there have someone lead and you definitely will find value of it, I assure you and then you know keep doing six sigma keep improving. Look for your thing. genius improvements. How are you using your materials? And you know, it’s so important that our associates are shopfloor associates are part of this. You cannot make an executive goal and just hope that something is happening. Measure it. Involve your employees.

Curt Anderson 15:15
I love this. Man, this is so great. This is so long overdue having you on shame on me that I took. So anyway, just glad that we’re here to get together in this moment right now. What a great conversation. This reminds me. So Damon, we have another number of great guests. We love the History Channel, who that built America. We have some deaths from the food that built America coming on the show. So I’ve been testing some of those episodes. The other night I caught Wendy’s. And Dave Thomas did exactly what you’re describing. So yeah, he blew up Wendy’s. You know what he did? He he wouldn’t he tacked McDonald’s with a premium burger. But he was having a ton of waste. What did he do? Chili? He came up with chili. And that’s that was one of the amazing. Yeah, because he he took the leftover waste, if you could, it would stay for an extra day or two in Chile. And that became one of their staple items. And that’s how they separated themselves from Burger King and Wendy’s back in the 70s and 80s. So

Sneha Kumari 16:13
thank you for sharing that current. Thank you.

Curt Anderson 16:16
And we have here we have some good ones coming up. But anyway, you see all sorts of challenges on this on the shop floor. I know like you know, guys, you’re such a wonderful, lovely woman. We’re out there sleeves rolled up. You’re right on the slot shop store. Here’s some examples of what are some of the challenges that you’ve seen that you’ve been able to help conquer and help your clients where they’re helping manufacturers over the years?

Sneha Kumari 16:37
Yes, no, definitely. So shop for scheduling is something that’s close to me, specifically, because when I did it, and I let it, I knew the pains there, I knew how manual and traditional approaches are being taken to manage your production shop flows. Remember, despite having ERP systems, because you either haven’t, you know, utilize the power of an ERP fully. And of course, your you know, your supervisors, your shopfloor associates aren’t very well versed about what exists there. So you’re still you know, I call it DIY schedule. So DIY scheduling, you know, in a spreadsheet, it may provide you a slight improvement, I’m not, you know, I’m not negating the power of that. But as if you want to grow, if you want to grow and you know, double your revenue, and whatever X years, remember, it’s not gonna work, and you need to start, and you need to manage your data. And honestly, I feel that DMS cabling is not any better than a whiteboard, when it comes to giving you the visibility, about what the work is going on what’s in process. And, and you know, you will, you will even you will lose track of what’s going on in your operations, and also eventually lose your customers, you could think that these manual approaches are cost effective, easy to implement, with little to no no learning curve, to get up the round. But at the end of the day, you know, because you most what I feel that most of us especially running the operations, we are on hot seats, right? Every single minute, every single hour, we are reporting, we are valued at the value added services. So the what we think about is we need to get this done. And my as job flow managers, what I’m doing is typically turn going turning to the manual scheduling because it’s low, let’s say low barriers to entry are it’s super easy to use. And plus most of my team knows how to use it. And every time we have an issue, we apply a mandate, right? We we look for an immediate containment action. But what we forget is I’m and I have seen that so much I have to tell you that I faced this issue. And then I would say three weeks again, like I did my OTB KPI I did my root cause. And then next month, back to this, if say even if it wasn’t next month, two months, again, I’m back to the same doing the same root causing somehow somewhere that were related. What I did not do was actually did not take the time to do my five why’s did not take the time to do and even if I did my five buys, I did not take the time to put that remove that bandaid and do a long term corrective action. That doesn’t happen again. And I feel that that is missing. And so if your company doesn’t have, say a person or or team dedicated for continuous improvements, if if all the burden is on me as your manager to run everything, you know, ultimately my goal is to get my orders out, make my customers happy. And so in this whole constant run in this wheel that I’m spinning, I am forgetting about my band aids. I’m leaving my band aids out there I’m bruising again and I’m coming back do a second date on top of it. That’s exactly what I’m what I’m doing. And what I, what I want to like share here today is, if you have ERP systems, use it, train people train, put efforts in training and upskilling your workforce, make efforts doing that and make sure that you’re using your ERP to the fullest. There are a lot of add ons that you could actually use on top of ERP as well. I’m not promoting add ons here, no add ons could be a burden too. But they could make your life easy. There are

SAS tools out there that you could easily be on a licensed basis, implement, see the value, you could actually you need a dashboard where you can sit behind your desk and see what’s going on. It’s like your heartbeat of your operations, see what’s going on? Where is something fallen? And what’s your product? Medrol material status looking like? Where is what what is that particular production line that’s down now, or you’re missing an order, you need to be ahead of this curve to constantly serve your customers. And at the same time, you need to monitor your key KPIs to see if you’re adding value. Like yeah, maybe you met all your customers and you made some revenue. But how about your bottom line? What about your costs? And a lot of small and mid tier companies do not take the effort to measure that. Because you know, you’re talking about revenue, you’re talking about growth? Yes, you’re getting it, but are you really making breakfast like, are you looking at your total landed costs, maybe not. And if you’re not, then maybe it’s high time you should like for example, when we do our Gamma walks, talk, you do your gamma works, I mean, choose every day, if you have 52 weeks, and we have 365 days a year, well, you know, exclude weekends, whatever. So I mean, every day, go for gimble walks, choose one production line at one site, go there. Finally, talk to your associates, like you need we need our executives going down there and talking to the associates and motivating them you need that like that engagement has to happen with your, with your executive team and the people who are doing this day in day out for you understand your five why’s and make sure you put some, you know, put your dollars in, as I said upscaling your workforce and continuous improvement. And of course, while you’re doing all of these fancy processes, make sure compliance of these processes is key like especially I feel that I’ve worked in high mix industry and their scheduling is super difficult because of the multiple level assemblies, the large number of components and you and maybe you’re not dealing with a lot of volume. So the low volume high mix work is even more difficult than you know, the high volume manufacturing and so especially those companies need to make sure that your schedule, you have a good scheduling engine, you know what’s going on, you are not like oh yeah, maybe you know, you’re not, you’re not living your operations to the hope that maybe I’ll make it, no, you need data, you have tons of data, use it, and trust me, you will make it you will make your customers happy, and you will make some money in the process.

Curt Anderson 23:03
Which replay button, guys.

Damon Pistulka 23:07
I know, it’s so great. It’s so great. Because it because you know, we live this in the companies that I ran, I mean, when you’re and I just gotta say it’s, it’s it is what it is right? In a lot of these companies that that you have in, like you said, low volume high mix, it is super tough to schedule, especially when you know, if you’re making something that’s critical for aerospace or space, and you know, it’s going to have outside processes come back in for some more assembly or manufacturing, machining, whatever modification, and then additional quality steps and out again, two different processes. I mean, we in one of the companies I ran, we made the actual pins that hold the wings on to the F 22 twos. And these things were I mean, they were like about the size of this cup. And, and I forget it was like 12 outside processes between different kinds of thing back and forth all the way from the raw material or way back, and you’d sit there and you’d look at okay, these are all the steps it takes to do this. And there’s a little bit of machining here, you know, in the beginning and this and that, and just trying to figure out on one of those, when are we going to be done? I mean, that’s the ultimate thing. And everybody wants to know, and what you’re talking about is is like it is a huge problem and that’s just one piece in one assembly in for one item that goes into a huge assembly. So these people that are doing, you know, massive assemblies, it’s much more difficult but yeah, they’re sitting there trying to do it in spreadsheets and sometimes it’s got to just drive people crazy.

Sneha Kumari 24:47
It has like it’s it is I’m sure everyone is being driven crazy because of using spreadsheets. If you cannot live your like you have to take that move take that leave you in high time like we have some Great manufacturing companies using some great tools out there we could I mean, there’s, there’s lots of opportunities. There’s lots of tools, cheap tools that one can use, implement and see some value. And if you don’t then stop use something else. Ultimately, you will learn something about your operations. Trust me, it’s it will be an eye opener. If you have never used it. I especially see that, especially I’m not sure if you have had like construction manufacturing guests over here. Like that particular construction has been growing at a very fast. And then I’ve seen the dearth of using these tools even more, especially the smaller teams who are manufacturing only for prefabrication. Or construction means that oh, it’s it’s bad. They need to catch up. They definitely need to catch up.

Curt Anderson 25:47
We have we have so many times. You mentioned five why’s twice, okay. I don’t want to make any assumptions here. Please enlighten folks, what do you mean by the five why’s? So if that’s new, that just in case that’s foreign to somebody, I would love for you just to share? I just want to hear it from you. So could you share the five why’s strategy? Yeah,

Sneha Kumari 26:09
and actually, you know, it’s the five Why’s a common terms, as I said out there honestly go to as many ways as you can I think they might have said that. Yes. Yeah.

Curt Anderson 26:18
Yeah, your any of our efficiency experts, they take that for granted. They know, you know, they’re all about the five why’s Wesleyan does that amazing job with her sales process? Wise, just just in case, there’s somebody out there, they’re like, What are you guys saying? What are you talking about? I just love to just just enlighten everybody, this is so yes, yes,

Sneha Kumari 26:37
absolutely. So I mean, you do not stop at five, go to 10 to go to N net, if you have to make sure that whatever, like, you know, many people do not understand the sometimes you know, you don’t even know really, if that’s the root cause. So it’s important that you have you know, your say Business System Managers coming and you know, actually teach you. But thankfully, like Honeywell is a very six, it was a very Six Sigma oriented company. And then crane is like heavily like they live and breathe lean. So it was kind of imbibed into me to think in that process. So and I would encourage everyone to do that. But let me just give you like, for example, say, if you miss your part, and you say you’re doing a gimbal walk or you’re doing your KPI walkthrough, you saw your you know, you saw one of your supplier parts or under one time. So you need to find out why did you miss apart? Because I mean, just do this, like, literally sit in a conference room and talk about it like or maybe just stand on that floor and talk about it? Because it was out of stock. So why was it out of stock? Because maybe the MRP or whoever, whatever system you’re using, never asked you to order it. So you never ordered it? Why did you never order it? Because maybe your routing was missing. So here you go, there was a routing issue, which because of this, you were not able to order that part and your MRP never triggered it. So now what’s routing routing, meaning, you know, if and you have some assemblies, you need to make sure that it’s routed to the parent part, and then eventually your parent part. And if it’s not, then when you’re ordering for that particular product, you will never order that. So it’s a very simple example. But I wanted to just, you know, demo it like kind of here so you know why it happened? keep answering your y’s until you know exactly what’s wrong that you can go back and fix it.

Curt Anderson 28:25
And that was perfect abs thank you so much. And so I was saying Damon, I just shared with you yesterday was my my wedding anniversary. So see a please don’t tell my wife about the five why’s because every year she’s like, Why did I marry this guy? For years, she was so awkward. You say you infinite wise so you might have 24 by the way?

Damon Pistulka 28:47
Yeah, yeah,

Sneha Kumari 28:48
we’re talking 24 years could I mean I don’t think she’s gonna get into the five why’s anymore now? Maybe she’s five years. I didn’t

Curt Anderson 28:59
move forward. So. Alright, so thank you for explaining the five why’s Yeah. Fantastic. Now demon number seven. You I have a bunch of patents. I think you have a bunch of patents do or wait, that’s not me. I don’t have any. I have no patents. Do you have any? No, I don’t hate you. Oh, I do. Oh, you know, there’s another underachieving moment right here. So go ahead. Yeah.

Sneha Kumari 29:23
That was spoken about my patent on any show that I’ve been on. So actually the first show, although it’s on my LinkedIn profile, I’m out.

Damon Pistulka 29:29
We have an exclusive demon. Yeah, we got an exclusive here. Sharon or her patent, the curtain Damon.

Sneha Kumari 29:36
All right. Yeah. It was back in the days when I was in Schneider, and you know, working on this whole, you know, SCADA and all that, you know, heavy industrial terms then. I’m sure there are a lot of better systems out there. But it was like back then since as I said, like I was in r&d and I we did this patent along with two of our team members from my team back then, and what we have what this parent is is about is actually it’s a system and a method for transmission of critical data. So for example, you are in a server client architecture control system in an industrial, you know, company. And what you want to do is, for example, whatever is your base method of communicating server and client, like, how do I like their server controllers, and then you have like other controllers, who is like navigating data and telling you what the temperature pressure, what was going on in your industry. So what happens when your, say you have fault tolerant like Ethernet that goes down, like whatever mode of communication you’re using, what if that goes down, you still need some critical data be transmitted from your clients to your server. And so my patent was actually using alarm signals to in that event of those occurrences, using alarm signals as audio packets of data that will be transmitted to the server when in the failure in the event of the failure of communication. So you have an electronic device and this control system and the and then you have, you know, the amplifiers and whatnot, and all of those devices, were they communicated in, in an alarm signal so and that navigate just that packet of data to them.

Damon Pistulka 31:11
So it’s like, a secondary channel, through audio, you let the server know that there’s a problem only for critical data, like, yeah, for critical something or other that you do not want to stop if the Ethernet is chopped, it still goes back audio? Yes,

Sneha Kumari 31:27
yes. It’s like, oil and gas applications. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka 31:31
Yep. Yeah, I’ve got a I’ve actually got a friend of mine, Mike pinaki. And he, he does the crazy Ethernet data hunting down. I mean, he’ll get calls. And it’s like, hey, I need to go to the middle of this place in anywhere around the world, because we can’t figure it out. And he’s like, on a plane and leaves and, you know, with all the fancy equipment and whatnot, oh, yeah, just all crazy stuff like that. But that’s cool. That’s cool.

Curt Anderson 32:00
So just how was that patent process,

Sneha Kumari 32:03
nail, you know, back then, and maybe, you know, maybe I’m wrong now, like back then I knew that I always wanted a patent, I was an engineer, you know, we take pride in that, coming up with new ideas and innovating, back then I feel that in India, you cannot really have software patents, you cannot, you can only have some, you know, hardware parents, and we since I was working in this whole automated home automation, this actual this was industrial automation idea. And then you have this home automation and Strider electric was actually when venturing into that space. And so this, I read the, because we are doing r&d, we are talking about new products, I do remember, like, you know, we used to have this whole innovation week, and in this five days, all we did we be a group of teams, and then we will immediately come up with an idea and actually do a prototype in that five days, it was amazing, like, the whole company will shut down, all they will do is come up with the ideas and do prototypes, and then you’ll have senior managers coming in and visiting, it was a lot of fun doing that. So just doing like, you know, they promote this exercise a lot, like keeping awaiting, you are doing you ve are the people like I was the people sending them the lab, literally doing the wiring and you know, setting up servers, it was fun, it was so much fun, I have to tell you, like setting up virtual machines and all of that. So, but I mean, you know, through that, because of us, learning about it. And knowing this was a pain point. That’s exactly how we came up with this idea and then filed for a patent. It took us what it took us about a year or a few months to actually get it formally passed. Now, you know, logged in with the government there. And then they keep asking questions, a lot of back and forth questions that we had to clarify. So the whole details were like, you know, the details were scripted out correctly. And then they grant you a number and then I think it took us awhile, probably some years to like formalize it and think a company takes the royalty whatever comes if you know, the technology. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka 34:04
That’s cool. That was

Curt Anderson 34:06
so all right. I know we need to wind down I know you’re super busy person and we need to get you wrapped up and moved on with your day. So guys, please connect with me. First off, first and foremost here on LinkedIn. She’s as you can tell, we don’t need to tell you she’s absolutely amazing supply chain and evangelists enthusiast, Guru expert. You name it. She’s a procurement powerhouse. She has a patent all sorts of exciting things. See, all right, today you wish I asked you who was your hero growing up today? Who inspires you today that drives you to be such a success?

Sneha Kumari 34:43
i Well, you know, I am learning a lot from my kids every day. They are the best negotiators. I think all our moms would agree. I’m getting a lot from them. And you know managing their days gives me an idea why I need technology. Sometimes you manage their days. I would say that we teach Listening every day, they keep me on my toes. And actually they are, you know, I used to be on this, I used to be I still am on this whole mom life, you know, work life guilt thing, like, you know, I’m not doing enough, but then a lot like I have to say I have to give a shout out to all my amazing women network, especially mom, working moms who have like, given me that inspiration that I have to be proud of what I’m doing, because my kids see me like that. And they will eventually grow up to respect women for whatever they’re doing. And I do that we need like, I have two boys. I’m a boy mom. So I absolutely, you know, know, what would I want them to do when they grow up? And you know, especially respect them and you know, let them grow and fly. So I would say that they have been teaching me a lot lately. And you know how I have grown? Like, it’s enormous. Like I have to say you have kids, do you I used to be like, Oh my god, I’m not getting sleep before my first one happened. And then my first one happened. I was like, I’m complaining, I’m not getting enough sleep. And my second one, it you know, you just expand your horizons, your capabilities, like you know, the, I can do so much in so little time. I am amazed sometimes at myself. I’m not like bragging trust me. Like I’m not doing it in perfect. But I can do so much because I can sleep less and still be like grabbers. And I’ll still go through my day because they keep me going. They absolutely keep me going. Yeah, you have a three year old. I have a three and a half. And I have a one or more. That’s

Curt Anderson 36:29
right. And I think you and I met just prior to your one year old. So

Damon Pistulka 36:35
I tell you what, the one thing I gotta tell you about parenting is you will never think you’re gonna get through that first dirty diaper. And then after you’re in 100 of them, it’s like no big deal. And you see somebody else that does it is not been around that. They go about how you just that example. I mean, for me, it was like, oh my god, that is that all of a sudden it’s like yeah, no big deal. Yeah, absolutely.

Curt Anderson 37:03
Well, guys, let’s wind down. I see what a blessing you are. Thank you. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for all the support. Thank you for what you do for our LinkedIn community you are dragging for us. I know you’re tight with like our friend Chris Harrington at Gen alpha and Sarah scoter. And I know you are all over the place. Everybody loves you. And so it’s just an honor for Daymond. Nice to hang out with you today. Thank you for joining us on our programs. I know you’re always so generous with your time and commenting and supporting and we spent, we said tons of love to you and your family. So thank you for what you do. Guys, I have on a personal note, I’m going to close on this. I know we have tons of fun. I want to send prayers, thoughts to the tragedy in Buffalo, New York. Families who I just I have no words. I have no words. I wish this would end in our country. I have no words. And just this, I just man, I can’t believe this hate still exists. So let’s give our thoughts and prayers. rough weekend. And we’re gonna get through this stronger and better. So anyway, Snia thank you for what you do for women in manufacturing. You’re an inspiration. And you know what, I’m going to leave you on this. When you’re too young boys become men and their animal podcasts with two goofy guys maybe demonized will still be around. Hey, who is your hero growing up? They’re gonna say my great mom, you

Sneha Kumari 38:28
are for that? Absolutely.

Curt Anderson 38:31
Thank you for anybody checking us out today. We encourage you keep spreading your little slice of awesomeness out in that world. So Damon, Happy belated Irish have multiple birthdays. So glad you had a great day. So I guess we’re gonna shut this down. Hang out with us one second. And we’ll statement we’ll see on Friday. We’ve got a great lineup on Friday. So have a great day.