Guidewheel Is Helping Manufacturers Reach Sustainable Peak Performance

Hi and welcome to the Women and Manufacturing Podcast. My name is Fran Brunel. I'm the president and founder of Accelerated Manufacturing Brokers Inc. A company that specializes in lower middle market mergers and acquisitions and only within the manufacturing sectors. And I am your host for today's show. So today we're very excited. We're welcoming to the show Lauren Dunford. Lauren is the CEO of Guidewheel. Guide Wheel is a global software company on a mission to empower all the world's factories to reach sustainable peak performance. Guidewheel's product has been recognized with awards from both State, Stanford and mit. Guide Wheel clips onto the power cord of any machine tool and provides connectivity to an active learning system allowing people to make data driven decisions. Lauren holds a BA and an MBA from Stanford. You go girl. And has a dozen years experience in supply chain and operations. Lauren, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much, Ben. Great to be here.

Great to have you here. I'm excited because this is something that almost any manufacturer in the United States can use. So introduce our listening audience to Guide Wheel.

Absolutely. And you summed it up. So Guide Wheel is factory ops. What that means is we take the kinds of real time visibility that everyone knows are very useful on the plant floor, but historically have been inaccessible except to very large manufacturers. They've involved bringing troops of consultants to tunnel into every machine PLC or spending huge amounts of money upfront and are just completely oversized for many manufacturers here in North America and globally. What FactoryOps does is take that visibility, which is so powerful in driving improvement and revenue and margin, and make it plug and play. We start with a sensor that clips around the power draw of any piece of equipment that uses electricity. So this could be very old machines. We're fine with equipment from the 1920s or 1930s or very brand new machines, you know, oftentimes sitting right next to each other in a plant floor gets all of those pieces of equipment into the cloud in real time, second by second. And then we layer on top of that all of the workflows that can help drive peak performance for the plants. So I'll stop there and we can dig into any more detail, but taking that real time visibility and making it accessible to everyone.

So this fascinates me because it seems almost too good to be true because of its simplicity. Can you speak into how.

Connecting to a power cord for people that are listening and going, that can't work because they've looked at systems that are so expensive, expensive over the top, require it people to install. How does it work?

Yes. And I think partly why it seems so magical is it wasn't possible until very recently. So of course you can get the electricity draw of the machine if you've got an extruder, a compressor, a thermoformer, any piece of equipment you can imagine. This is big three phase equipment. So where we generally clip is either in the distribution board or just one of the phases where it's connecting into electricity. That data itself seems very boring. It's just, okay, it's maybe drawing more power when it's running on load, but how much can that really tell you? The magic comes from the detail. When you look at that power draw on a detailed basis, which is what the guide wheel system is doing in the cloud on the back end. It's like a heartbeat, an EKG of what that equipment is doing. Yes. It'll tell you whether it's running on load, idle, dry running by the different amperage it's drawing. It'll also show you cycles when you've actually got a unit of output being produced, cycle time. And that level of detail also becomes accessible because of the machine learning and because of the power of the factory ops system that we've built, translating that real time data into those useful metrics.

Okay, so as the machine is running a cycle at certain points of that it's drawing more power and you're, you're taking that information and translating it into actionable data.

Exactly. So you just, if you see it, it's like a little heartbeat of being able to count the cycles. Also being able to derive if a piece of equipment is drawing more current than usual or exhibiting a strange pattern. We've had, folks, I just a couple of weeks ago heard someone say, hey, I was looking at my extruder and it's its pattern and guide wheel saw a change in that pattern and we were able to go right away, identify actually a quality problem that could have caused an entire day's worth of production to be bad. So it's quality machine health and it won't catch everything. Nothing in life is completely perfect. This wouldn't, for example, be able to identify a difference in color. That would be a quality change. But if something manifests in how that piece of equipment is running, a lot of those things are going to show up in its electrical heartbeat. So being able to, like you said, keep that simplicity of simple clip same day, get visibility, keep the completeness of visibility as well. No one wants to just have a little nightlight in a portion of the operation that shows a few machines and how they're running. Everyone wants to see everything at once. And the power draw, because it works across all ages, makes models of equipment and both production equipment and utilities or auxiliary equipment, you get that completeness, but then also the granularity for many of those things as well.

Are people using this to.

Predict needed equipment maintenance?

Yes. So not only being able to tabulate exactly how long a machine is run since the last maintenance was conducted, so that it's based on runtime rather than just the time that's passed and the calendar, but also because you can clip the sensors on the main, drive other components as well the whole piece of equipment or get very granular in terms of heaters and drive measured separately. You can get very detailed in terms of when that equipment is starting to experience wear and tear. That is going to require maintenance. So again, we won't catch everything, but we sure can tell for many types of maintenance that's needed if that machine is working harder to do the same thing and might be due.

I'm also imagining that as a manufacturing business owner, certain data coming out of this may be very useful from an HR perspective.

You're seeing in real time.

The first shift ran this much time. The second shift doing the same thing produced a fraction of the. Yeah.

So 100%. So whether it's comparing shifts, whether it's showing a shift, their trend and being able to inspire that healthy competition. Come in in the morning and look at were we green or red. Did we do better than the night shift? Did we do better than we did the day before that competition based in real measurable results. Super valuable. And especially right now with the labor challenges and turnover that many manufacturers are experiencing, the ability see who's doing a fantastic job with a certain machine, whether it's running the process or things like changeovers or setups, being able to actually measure and see where the bright bright spots in the operation are so that you can arrange for retraining or cross training in a very data driven way and then see when that training had an impact is just we see lots of books doing a lot of that right now with guideweel.

So the other question I would have about this is you talk about it could be used on almost any machine. That seems strange to me. So anything from an, from an old manual lathe to a screw machine to a CNC mill.

Does this system like if you're hooking it to say an old screw machine and you've never done that before, is it. Is there like a learning curve of the software? Talk into that a little bit?

Yeah, definitely. And the nice thing is we have thousands and thousands of pieces of equipment of different types in the system already. So for any given type, odds are we'll be able to find where it was clipped, whether it was the drive or the main disconnect for that equipment and what that pattern is likely to look like. So we can get a lot of that in advance in terms of the learning curve. Typically what we want to do is we want to watch that equipment in a couple of different states and then have the system with these configurable thresholds learn what to classify for that equipment.

Okay.

So that might be watching it for a couple of shifts in its normal operation so we get a chance to see running on load dry running the different states naturally. It could also be if an operator wants to just do those different states right then and there within an hour, that could be an easy way to accelerate that setup as well. A lot of folks that we work with are very concentrated right now, especially on speed to visibility. So they may want to say, okay, in one day we're going to clip in all of our pieces of equipment and get that visibility going. So that can be a useful tool if you want to train it quickly. Just take it through its paces and then we'll be able to see what that looks like.

Yeah. What's the learning curve like for.

Owners using this software? Accessing? First of all, how do they access it? Do they have to download something? Is it all cloud based and what's the learning curve? How long till they're up running and looking at data that they can make decisions on?

Yeah, very fast. So this isn't necessarily the owner level, but I had one of the managers that we work with tell me the other day, if you can use Madden, you can use Guide Wheel. So if you're playing video games, speaking to that new generation from an operator or supervisor or owner level, this is quick to pick up because it uses a lot of the same ways of doing things on our mobile phones, tablets and computers that we're using for, you know, the rest of our lives as well. In terms of usually what that looks like, it's a 15 or 20 minute training. We always want to make sure that we're not just providing software, we're providing that full partnership of making sure that any manufacturer who gets started with Guide Wheel is successful not just in using it, but also in getting the results that are going to be, you know, whether it's an improvement in runtime or utilization or actually quantifying revenue or margin improvement. We'll be there with you every step of the way. So in answer to your question of how long does a typical owner take to get started, it would be that 15 or 20 minutes intro. It is all cloud based, so it works as an app on your phone or on your browser, but doesn't have to be redownloaded every time there's an update. It'll automatically refresh. When we improve the system, which we're doing, we release 100 plus different updates a year. So it's fun.

Very quick to get started. It's also very visual. So green is good, red is bad. All of those kind of easy ways of looking and pulling trends. Mm.

I'm curious. You know, so working in manufacturing M and A, a lot of.

Clients that are selling are of retirement age and they are often.

Technology adverse or technologically challenged. Well, not so much. You know, they may have the, the manufacturing down pat. They know what they're doing, but they're not, they, they don't like computers, not all of them, but I'm going to say a majority of them. So.

What about like what percentage of your clients are older? Like you referenced younger and referenced, you know.

Games and things like that that the younger generation uses. Do you have a good portion of clients that are older and have they been able to as easily acclimate to this?

Yeah, absolutely. So the vast majority of the folks using Guide Wheel are, I don't know the exact ages, but definitely not young, straight out of college, much more that spread across generations. What we've seen is actually just tremendous value for that type of owner because they know their business inside and out, every detail of the process, the machines.

They can feel. When a machine is starting to have a problem sometimes is what we've experienced. And so pairing that with technology that is easy to understand because you can see how that machine heartbeat looks. Actually the responses that I've gotten is that it makes people feel closer to their equipment of being able to have a pulse on everything that's happening, especially when they're folks who have spent a lot of time out on the floor. It's that the kind of visual and easy to use technology paired with that depth of process and business knowledge from equipment perspective and then also from a business perspective, if you're pulling up your P and L and can see where that downtime plays a role in the capacity that you have available to sell, it's suddenly being able to have a pulse on your business in real time for the metrics, you know, like the back of your hand, but that it can be sometimes helpful to have that actual data that you can trust coming in automatically.

So then, in your opinion, would this be helpful to people who are considering selling their business?

Absolutely. If you want to be able to show prospective investors that you're managing those operating metrics very closely, show them also what additional capacity might be available if they had additional funds to invest in CapEx, that kind of visibility is extremely useful. We also find that there's one metric when it comes to that visibility that is most useful in terms of those numbers with prospective investors, and that's the downtime piece. Being able to quantify and put a name to the reasons for downtime when it comes to the lens of investor coming in and wanting to understand, you know, how what is this business going to do as part of my portfolio or where can I drive the most improvement, or why is this business going to be successful? Moving into the future, showing you're in control of that metric and being able to have those numbers behind it is extremely helpful and honestly, far more helpful than the other metrics if you're looking to start somewhere.

Yeah, absolutely. I know one of the most often asked questions by a good quality buyer is the question of capacity. How much can I grow this business before I have to think about moving it to another location, expanding the building or, or making substantial capital expenditures. And it seems to me that this would help speak into that and provide, you know, rock solid data surrounding it where it's not just a retiring manufacturer saying, oh yes, you can double capacity in this building, you can double your sales. You can, you'd actually have evidence.

Exactly. And it's also neat because a lot of times people want to make those improvements actually themselves to the business before. So an example of that might be if you've got a big portion of the building devoted to equipment that you can see, actually the utilization on that equipment is very low. It may make sense to analyze if you want to devote that space to something else or if you want to maybe not be conducting maintenance on that equipment anymore because the maintenance cost is outweighing the value you're getting from utilizing it only a little. There are lots of ways in which both being able to take action on that data right away and just being able to have that data can be very helpful in the lead up to a process.

Why else do should manufacturers want to have this data? What else, you know, why should they care about this is what I'm asking.

Yeah, growing the business is the number one reason so moving the needle on revenue and on margin are really the key areas. Revenue, if you're in an environment where you're capacity constrained and trying to figure out how to get more out of the assets you have, trying to figure out whether it does make sense to invest capex in a new machine or a new plant or whether you can continue to sell into your existing assets. This is a way where you can actually target sales to the assets you have and where there's capacity and drive that revenue number. If you're in a sales constrained environment, then it's all about margin and it's about how can we make sure that our clients productivity with the shifts that we're running and the team that we have is extremely high. Reducing unplanned downtime due to setups or changeovers or those kinds of daily things that can add cost but not add value to the business is another big driver. So it's all about driving revenue and margin at the end of the day is why we see folks caring.

Yeah. So you, I think I read on the website that you've worked with over 100 manufacturers, is that correct? Correct. So have there been curious as people start to use this system.

What have they been most surprised by?

I have one number one answer there. They're nearly always surprised by the amount of capacity they have. So I was seeing a story a week or two ago about a manufacturer who had used guide wheel and actually increased asset utilization by 30 to 35%. Wow, that is a lot. And that same leader described how when he first brought the system to the team, at first they said no, these numbers must be wrong. You know, it looks like we're operating less than we know we are. But when they dug into the numbers they were all this. I don't think it was him who used this word, but someone used the word flabbergasted by how much opportunity exists within their existing machines, their team and the assets they already have to get more revenue and get more margin, which can feel at first like bad news. It's like, oh, we weren't operating as well as we thought we would. But at the end of the day what I see people quickly flip into is this is great news. This means that our business can be bigger and better and more profitable with what we have. So the number one thing is people are surprised by how much more capacity they can actually get than they're getting right now.

What led you to start this? Explain that. Yeah. Fascinated by this because again, every manufacturer can use it and it seems to Provide a great level of data at what I'm understanding as a fraction of the cost of competing systems. Curious how you started this.

Yeah, I have been obsessed with the operations and supply chain and manufacturing space for more than a dozen years now. First got hooked on operations actually during my undergrad at Stanford within the operations of that university. Got a Fulbright to study supply chain. Kind of dived deep into that world and then spent. And this was the key thing that that really was the impetus for starting guidewheel. 5 years working out of a fresh food manufacturing plant in Oakland. I was on the account side. So I was in charge of 65 million of the west coast host business. Sitting in the plant every day and seeing the clipboards and whiteboards and spreadsheets and how manually, even though we were producing millions of units a week, we were tracking most of that in very manual ways because like you described, the only systems that existed were so heavyweight and just would have been completely inappropriate for a manufacturer of our size. So was inspired by that, headed back to Stanford, focused the two year MBA program they have there on how do we apply technology in very elegant and smart ways to make visibility accessible not just to the world's largest factories, but to factories of any size and have been. Now it's all the broader team. We have a great team here at Guide Wheel that's building not only the product developing all the time, but really making sure that we provide exceptional support to our customers as well. So all credit to the team, but that's where the inspiration came from.

Fabulous. So we are starting to run out of time. If our audience would like to learn more about Guide Wheel, how best should they reach out to you?

Our website is guidewheel.com so G U I D E W H E L.com I'm also on LinkedIn, Lauren Dunford and Guide Wheel so feel free to message me. Always happy to chat. Whether you're a manufacturer looking for this type of solution or just someone who wants to connect on these topics. I really feel so lucky to be in this space and always happy to connect.

Yeah. And you know what, thank you for being with us. I'm so excited to have someone on and it with what you do in technology that it's built for and can be used by small manufacturers because there's such a need for it, they're not making for the most part data driven decisions and this is a game changer for them. So I hope that they reach out. Thank you so much for being with us.

Thanks so much Pam. Really appreciate it.

Hey so if you are a woman in manufacturing or in a company or industry that's servicing the manufacturing community and you'd like to be on the show, please reach out. I'm on LinkedIn Frances Brunel. You can just call my office, 908-387-1000. I would also like to encourage our listeners to visit whampodcast.com where you can see all of our shows and other shows brought to you by the Jacket Media Company. Thank you for joining us and have a great day everybody. This podcast is a part of the C Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-suiteradio.com.