The Most Underrated Skill in Automation (P243)

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, everybody. Thank you for tuning back in
to the automation podcast. This week, I meet
up with Aaron Moncour
from Pipeline Design and Engineering
to talk about what he thinks is the
most important skill to have in industrial automation.
And we also talk about his upcoming event,
PDX,
which is, coming up just in a few
weeks, and we even have a coupon if

(00:22):
you wanna go to save you $50 off
the admission price. And we also talk about
his podcast. He has over 300 interviews with
engineers from all kinds of backgrounds,
and, I think you guys will find that
interesting as well. And, we just had a
great time just talking and chatting about different
strategies and different challenges we've had over the
years in the automation world. So with that

(00:44):
said, let's go ahead and jump right into
our interview with Aaron Moncour of Pipeline Design
and Engineering.
I wanna welcome to the show for the
first time, Aaron.
And, we have a very exciting topic to
talk about today. Should be very interesting to
all you controls engineers and you high end
electricians and technicians out there do automation.
But, before we jump into the discussion, Aaron,

(01:06):
please, tell the people a little bit about
yourself.
Alright. Well, Sean, thank you so much for
the introduction and having me on the podcast.
I've been excited to talk with you. I
have my own podcast as well, actually. I'll
I'll touch on that a little bit, but,
I love talking about engineering and,
business
and automation.

(01:26):
My company, Pipeline Design and Engineering, we've been
around for about fifteen years now, and our
focus is, industrial automation. We're integrators.
We also do a lot of, just test
fixtures, you know, smaller,
not necessarily automated, but manual fixtures, things like
that, machine building. We even do we actually
started
fifteen years ago in in general,

(01:48):
product design. And so we did a lot
of medical device design,
consumer products, things like that. And then about
three, four years in, one of our customers
asked us if we could design a test
fixture for them. And we said, what's a
test fixture? Yes.
And so, we figured out, you know, what
that was all about and delivered it and
they really liked it. And they said, this

(02:08):
is great. We need more of this kind
of thing. And so ever since then, slowly
but surely, we we've, been
moving more and more into that area of,
like, fixtures. And then at some point, we
started adding a little bit of motion, a
motor, and a pneumatic actuator.
And then at some point, we started doing
full automation. And and at this point, that's
that's kind of our focus is automation machine

(02:28):
building, and we still do test fixtures and,
a little bit of of product design
as well. But I I have a degree
in mechanical engineering,
and I've been doing this, for a little
over twenty years.
Interesting story of getting laid off and then
starting my company
and, just living the dream here with a
wonderful, wonderful group of people doing engineering and

(02:49):
automation work.
You know, I've worked with a lot of
custom machine builders over the years, and a
lot of what they do is test stands.
And a lot of them are automated, and
some of the most interesting ones I've seen
were a lot for medical devices and whatnot.
A lot of them are for things that
we use every day, like the pieces that
go in your door, like the door switch
and the windows, you know, that send them

(03:10):
up and down. Those things need to be
not only assembled, a lot of time, pick
and place type of,
systems, but they have to be tested. And
they're gonna be tested a lot, like, millions
of times.
A lot of times, if the prototypes, they
gotta go through some very rigorous testing, and
there's a lot sometimes lots of data collection
that goes along with that. So I got
an idea for for what you're saying and

(03:31):
some, you know, test stands and actually, you
know, manual assemblies. Sometimes you just need a
bunch of jigs and different layouts so you
can put something together quickly
and,
you know, in manufacturing, some of that has
to be done by hand as well. So
very interesting stuff.
And so,
with that said, I know we wanted to
jump into a go a couple different ways

(03:52):
here, but I do know I before we
get too far in, you do have a
upcoming event. So I wanted to make sure
we get the talk about that a little
bit before we jump into the topic of
what would, you know, the meat of what
we're gonna discuss today. Yeah. Thank you. Something
that's really big for me, important for me
is, building community
around engineering.
And, we have a few ways that we've

(04:13):
done this. We have our podcast, Being an
Engineer.
We also have an online community called The
Wave. It's thewave. Engineer,
free resources and tools, education for for engineers.
And then we also have an event called
PDX,
and PDX stands for the Product Development Expo.
It is, inclusive of all things hardware. So

(04:34):
that includes, you know, product designers. It includes
metrology folks. It includes automation experts.
Basically, anyone who touches
hardware
developing,
hard goods products would be a good fit
for for this event.
The, the PDX event is happening this October.
That's a Tuesday and a Wednesday just outside

(04:55):
of Phoenix,
Arizona.
And, kind of the unique innovative
format of this event is that it's it's
not just like a trade show where you
show up and and, you know, you get
a flyer or a brochure from a vendor.
The focus of this event is is training
and education. It's kind of like a two
day boot camp for hardware professionals, whether they're

(05:17):
mechanical engineers, automation engineers, manufacturing engineers.
And so we have about
about 35
experts in the industry
who are are gonna be there as instructors
training on different topics.
These include
AI tools for engineering workflows,
GD and T, tolerance stack,

(05:39):
modular extrusion for machine frames, robot programming,
linear motor, motion control,
precision fluid dispensing, CAD data management, FEA,
engineering documentation,
simulation,
DIY,
PCB design and prototyping, three d scanning, reverse
engineering. So it's pretty
extensive.
There's something for everyone there. Again, it's a

(06:01):
two day e event, a training boot camp,
October,
just outside,
Phoenix, Arizona. You can go to pdexpo.engineer
to learn more about the event and sign
up. The cost is $295
and that's inclusive of all the different training
topics that you can choose to sign up

(06:22):
for at the event.
Yeah. That sounds like a pretty good deal
too. If you have somebody junior on your
staff or if you're changed roles in your
company and you're getting more into this kind
of type of product design and engineering,
then, definitely check that out.
You typically can't go anywhere for two ninety
five. Right? So Right. Just a walk in
the door for a day is typically

(06:44):
it's not and and I know that the
people out there, they're probably gonna have some
services that they can offer as well that
some of you guys may wanna take, take
advantage of. But for you folks, especially if
you're in the area or if you have
a need at work for one of these
things, please check it out. And, if I
get it correct, it's pdexpo.engineer?
That's right. P d e x p o

(07:06):
dot engineer.
Excellent. And speaking about engineering, of course, you're
a mechanical engineer. We see a lot of
mechanical engineers
in automation as automation engineers when especially when
it comes to, systems that have servos on
them,
systems that are very,
you know, a lot of acceleration, a lot
of mass, systems that require more than just,

(07:27):
you know, very sequential type of logic that,
you know, we have lots of parts moving
around that have to be in certain places
at certain times.
And so,
can you tell us a little bit about,
you know,
your journey as,
the owner of a company?
And I know how you came came to
this conclusion about the most

(07:48):
valuable resource in automation. We're not gonna give
the answer away yet,
because then we would never show. But, in
any case, can you talk a little bit
about that, your journey and what you've gone
through and the different things you ran into
and learned?
Yeah.
I I think there is a a very
underrated skill in automation, and it's not something
that people talk about very often. But over

(08:09):
twenty years in the industry, I've definitely seen
this over and over and over. And so
we're we're gonna talk about that today.
In terms of my journey, how I got
here,
I worked at an engineering company twenty years
ago and great company, very smart people.
And in the beginning, I loved it. I
got to do all the things that I

(08:30):
enjoyed, right? CAD design and prototyping
and, you know, working on a mill and
a lathe to to make some parts and
assembly is wonderful.
Then the economy slowed down. Right? This is
back in 02/1989.
Mhmm.
And the I'll just call it the the
fun work, the quote, unquote fun work, kind
of dried up. And what our company had

(08:52):
left was kind of a lot of documentation
and and paperwork,
not fun work, at least by most engineers'
standards.
And, I was young and and probably,
immature,
and I kind of checked out mentally. You
know, I'd show up every day and I'd
put in the the hours,
but, my heart wasn't in it and and

(09:13):
my mind wasn't really in it. And the
owners of the company, they were, you know,
intelligent people. They could tell that my heart
wasn't really in it. And they pulled me
in one day and said, hey, Aaron.
Unfortunately,
we we need to let some people go.
And,
we can tell that you're just not very
engaged right now. So you are one of
the people that we're gonna let go. And

(09:34):
it was a a shock. It shouldn't have
been. Right? Like, looking back,
hindsight is twenty twenty. I should have seen
it coming, but,
again, young, naive, immature, I didn't. So it
was a shock. My wife and I had,
just bought our first home. We had
a new child. Right? Our first kid had
just been born, and so it was it
was a gut punch for me, and I

(09:55):
remember feeling physically ill for several days after
that. But eventually, I I got my feet
back underneath me and decided, okay. I need
to figure out what's next. You know, what
am I gonna do? And the the the
first thought was, well, I'll just go out
and find another engineering job. But I started
thinking, and,
it was true. What the statement that the
owners of this company had made saying you

(10:16):
weren't very engaged. And I thought, you know
what? They're they're right. I I wasn't very
engaged. Why is that? What what happened to
make me disengaged?
And I I thought that maybe I had
fallen out of love with engineering.
And so I was I had actually been
doing some side hustles,
but I was still employed at the company.
I had started a photography company with a

(10:37):
buddy of mine. I'd started a little web
design company on my own. I was even
exploring commercial real estate. So kind of very
different things, right, than engineering and thinking to
myself, I I I don't know if I
like engineering anymore. I think I I might
just wanna do something completely different. Well,
a few months into that, my father-in-law, he
pulls me aside and he says, hey,

(10:58):
what's the plan here? Like,
what what are you gonna do to he
he didn't come out and say it this
way, but
support my daughter and my grandchild. Right?
And, he suggested that
maybe I did still like engineering, and and
maybe it was just the way I was
doing engineering that had turned me off. And
I thought, that's that's pretty sage advice. I'm

(11:19):
I'm gonna take that. And so I jumped
back into engineering only the way I did
it differently this time was instead of going
out and looking for another job, I just
started doing it myself as a a freelance
engineer.
And I would just call companies up and
say, hey. I'm I'm Aaron. I've got some
good engineering
skills.
These are the things I can help with.

(11:39):
And lo and behold, I I got a
few jobs, you know, some small things. Didn't
pay well. I remember working sixty, seventy hour
weeks and getting paid like $35 an hour
back in the beginning.
What was so interesting was that I loved
it. It was so fun. You know, all
of a sudden I loved engineering again. I
was back in it and I, what I
learned about myself back then was I really

(12:00):
thrive on high level autonomy. When I'm given,
responsibility
over kind of the the entire machine as
opposed to just being a cog in the
machine, That's what really lights me up and
and gets me excited. So that was the
start of my company, Pipeline Design and Engineering.
We did,
largely consumer product design back then, medical devices,

(12:23):
things like that. And then we talked a
little bit about the the test fixtures and
that led into machine design and automation. And
these days that is our focus.
Everything from kind of desktop to standalone, you
know, maybe five by five by seven, eight
feet tall, something like that. That's our sweet
spot for automation
and engineering.

(12:43):
Along the way,
I decided,
the company where I worked before, great company,
good people for sure. Right? Very grateful for
the experiences I had there.
Nevertheless, there were some things that I didn't
love about the culture at that company. And
so I decided when I started Pipeline,
I really wanted to focus on developing,

(13:05):
a wonderful culture where people just they liked
being here. They enjoyed,
the camaraderie
with the different team members. They enjoyed the
work. They enjoyed the environment.
And so,
building a successful culture
was really important to me. And, you might
be thinking right now, okay, culture, that's the
underrated skill. Well, it is one of them,

(13:26):
but it's not the underrated skill that we're
going to arrive at. So so stay tuned.
But but, that became a a big focus
for me. And, it is to this day.
And there have been
a variety of things that we've done to
to cultivate a culture where people really love
being.
You know, I was thinking about what you

(13:46):
were just saying and and,
you know, I was always surprised. I'm I'm
thinking about it. I'm like,
you know, as a parent, I was surprised
how different the personalities of my children were.
And I still I'm thinking as you're talking,
I'm like, man, they're they're they're so different.
And then when I started visiting customers after
I got my college degree and got into

(14:07):
this crazy industry and I was visiting helping
customers with their PLCs and other products,
I was amazed how different
company cultures were.
And and and some of them were definitely
toxic.
I mean, it came to the point where
you'd be like, yeah. I'm not going there.
I don't care if they never buy anything
from us again.
You know? They're just so toxic. Right? And

(14:29):
the salesman, we used I'm the I was
always a technical guy, so the salesman would
have heartburn of that, but I'm like and
then some places you just didn't wanna leave.
They had such camaraderie, such
they worked so well together. They were they
were just they you know, nobody was out
trying to prove that they're better than everybody
else. They were just trying to make the
customer, get them the machine

(14:50):
or the service or, you know, make the
product as good as possible. And it's just
such a a a range.
And I you know, I'm sitting here. I'm
thinking,
why why are the cultures so vastly different
than the cost leadership at each facility? You
know, gen you know, promotes different types of
cultures, and there's such a
age gap from boomers

(15:11):
to, you know, now Gen z. Right?
In the in in the, you know, in
these facilities that you don't even know what
you're gonna get. You could have something that
feels like you're out of the sixties or
something that feels like you're out of the
twenty second century. You know? But,
yes. So it it is amazing how many
different cultures in, and I I guess not
a lot you know, a lot of people

(15:32):
maybe they have four or five different jobs.
So they've probably been through four or five
different cultures, and they can relate to what
we're saying there about
how how how, you know, cultures can really
affect
not just the efficiency and the effectiveness,
but also just the the the satisfaction of
the employee.
And I think I think in today's world,
especially in The US where people change jobs

(15:52):
every three to five years,
if you're investing in a high-tech person, if
you're gonna invest in training, invest in education
and mentoring,
you you know, having a good coach is
so important. Are you gonna you gonna keep
having turn I and I've met a lot
of people that are like, we just can't
keep somebody in this position. Well, it's because
you guys are a bunch of jerks.
It's not your pay.
Absolutely.

(16:13):
It's not what they have to work on.
It's just that you guys are unpleasant to
be around. I wouldn't wanna work here. You
know? And so just some random thoughts about
culture as you were talking about that, but
that's that was what's going through my head.
Yeah. People need a certain amount of money,
right, to to pay their bills and live.
But but beyond that
baseline,
money isn't much of a motivator.

(16:33):
But good culture is enjoying where you work,
enjoying the people with whom you work.
Even though I didn't I haven't worked at
a lot of places. I had a few
internships and I had even after I started
pipeline and it was just me, I worked
at a a few places contract, right, for
three months, six months, things like that. There's
this one place I work. It was an
an automation,

(16:54):
place here locally. I won't say the name.
Actually, I think they're they're gone at this
point anyway. Anyway,
the the owner,
I think I think maybe he was bipolar
is my guess. Sometimes he would be super
nice. In fact, I remember,
when my wife and I had our our
second child,
he gave me I was a contractor. Right?
So I didn't have any PTO or anything

(17:16):
like that. He he gave me two days
pay while I was, you know, just out
at the hospital with my wife and son.
I thought that was so kind and and
generous. So he had these moments when he
was just very thoughtful
and then other moments where he was a
tyrant.
He would just he'd walk into the office,
just start yelling
at people, literally yelling at people. Mhmm. I
had never been in an environment like that

(17:37):
before, a work environment like that. And so
it was it was a shock to me.
And you could see the effect on culture.
You know? People were scared of him. They
were not performing at their best because they
didn't know what to expect when they showed
up at work.
So
when I started Pipeline, I I decided that
I wanted to have a strong purpose

(17:58):
and and core values. Now people talk about
purpose and core values, and and I think
oftentimes they end up as as platitudes on
a wall that don't really mean much. You
know, they're they're corporate marketing bullet points, basically.
I like to think that our purpose and
core values are are things that have actually
meaningfully
contributed to the culture that we have. And

(18:18):
and that shows up in comments from team
members. I've been approached by team members. We
do one on ones where we just, you
know, create an open forum for people to
talk and and share. If they have questions
or concerns, they can talk to me directly.
And in these one on ones, I can't
tell you the number of times where an
engineer has said to me, I didn't know
it could be this way at a company.
This is the best place I have ever

(18:40):
worked.
I'm not afraid to tell you what I
actually think. You know? And these these comments
go on and on.
So the purpose that we have at Pipeline
is to promote joy in the lives of
our team members.
Now be before you,
stop listening because you're thinking this is way
too woo woo for me and and hippie
dippie,

(19:00):
I I'm telling you that a happy
employee, a happy engineer is a productive
and effective
engineer. This this leads directly to productivity and
taught in fact, one of our core values
is focused on productivity. But if you ask
why enough times, you know, you look at
what you're doing day to day and ask
why am I doing this? Well, here's the
reason. Okay. What's the reason for that? Why?

(19:22):
Keep asking why. In my opinion, you ultimately
end up at joy. You know? The that's
really why we do anything because we want
to experience joy in our lives. I won't
get too philosophical about that, but
in the doctrine of Aaron, that's why we
do pretty much everything we do to experience
joy.
So,
that's our purpose is to promote joy in

(19:44):
the lives of our team members. And then
we have our our four core values. We
have, number one is treat the customer well,
but treat your team members better.
Number two is governed by productivity,
not bureaucracy.
Number three is suffocate chaos, promote order. And
number four is prevent surprises.

(20:04):
And we use these core values to to
make decisions and to
manage and govern the company. There was one
example.
We moved into a new building years ago.
And,
in this building, we had a warehouse where
we'd build, you know, machines and and, automation
and and things like that.

(20:24):
And
one day, an an engineer had, I can't
remember what, a drink or or maybe it
was even, you know, some food or something
like that in in the build area. And
our our director of engineering walks in and
he says, hey. You can't have food in
here. Like, we're we're building machines. Right? Totally
reasonable
statement to make. Like, it's it's not safe

(20:45):
for you to have food in here. Either
you're gonna contaminate the machines or the machines
are gonna contaminate your food. Either way, it's
not good for anyone.
And,
so
we had a conversation as a team about
this because
while
the the sentiment I agreed with wholeheartedly,
it
it creating a policy and just flat out

(21:08):
saying no food in the warehouse
didn't feel like the pipeline way to me.
It didn't quite sit right with me. And
I I asked myself, why is that? It's
a very reasonable
request. Right? No food where you're building machines.
And, it just just the idea of adding,
like, layers of policy
doesn't sit well with me. So we sat
down as a team

(21:28):
and said, hey. Core value number one is
treat our customers well, but treat our team
members better. How how how do we treat
our team members better,
in this particular situation?
And what we came up with was instead
of just
adding a policy,
we're gonna we we do we do something
called governing principles
and supporting behaviors.

(21:49):
And so the the, the governing principle is
the high level, like, why. Right? Why are
we doing this? Why does it matter? And
then some people do like having actual rules
to follow, and that's fine. So the supporting
behaviors are are kind of those rules. And
we empower our team members to circumvent those
supporting behaviors
if it's in support of the governing principles,

(22:11):
which is ultimately
all we care about. So for this particular
situation,
our governing principles are we wanna keep the
human safe.
We wanna keep the machines clean.
We want an area that we can be
proud of when our customers walk in. Right?
And they're not seeing, you know, food wrappers
or things. These are the things that we
actually care about.
And then we have some supporting behaviors that

(22:32):
are things like don't keep,
open beverages
in the you know, that we have a
perimeter where the this is the designated build
area.
Clean up clean up after yourself after you're
finished working in an area, things like that.
And,
we found that the the team really appreciated
the fact that management didn't just

(22:53):
layer on another policy. Right? We had an
open conversation about this core value number one,
how can we treat the team better,
and, that's that's worked out really well. And
we use that same philosophy, the governing principles
and supporting behaviors in other areas of the
company as well.
Yeah. You know, I yeah. As you're as
you were saying that I think back to

(23:13):
I think it was the seven habits,
by Stephen Covey. And and one of the
things that he he
through his research, he found was that, you
know, you can't
be efficient with the people. You can only
be effective with the people.
And what brought my mind to that was
the fact that, like you said, some people
want a bunch of rigid rules,

(23:34):
some people don't. And in fact, every person
is different.
And so, you know, there are some people
who you need to have
meetings with often to touch base with them.
And there's other people who you don't have
to have meetings with as much
because they're much more in tune with your
what you're thinking, the way you're doing things,
and it's kinda like you end up just
having the same conversation over and over again.

(23:56):
But there are other people who maybe not
know as much as,
may maybe don't feel as in tune to
this to the,
to the to the system. Maybe they're a
new employee, and it can be very helpful.
I it's amazing the misunderstandings
as both as a father and it being
in this business
that I've seen other people have.
You know, you try to choose your language,

(24:16):
your words, the extra words you use. I'm
trying to be aware of the connotations
you to attach those words with different age
groups even in different areas of the country,
and still people can get. And a lot
of times, it's not because of what you're
saying. It was because of something else they
were thinking about when you started talking to
them.
And so it's it's very easy for people
to misunderstand, and that's why I have an

(24:38):
open communications.
You You know, those companies that have open
communications like your company, I think, do very
well
as far as employee satisfaction because
then then, you know, somebody's not going around
with a ruler in a in a pad
trying to get people in trouble. People are
talking to each other. They're sharing with their
ideas. They're sharing the thoughts and and the
things they're running into.

(24:58):
And,
they get to talk through, like, you just
gave in this example. They get to talk
through different situations.
The other thing I you know, when you
as you were talking, I was thinking about
too is, you know, it it's it's,
you know, what do people want? And and
a lot of people have said this a
lot of different ways. You you say people
want joy. I think people want to feel
like they're part of a team.

(25:19):
That that that team and that team has
a purpose,
a good purpose, a purpose that they can
sign up for, they can believe in.
So I wanna create test stands that help
my customer
test their products quickly and efficiently so they're
selling products that work to their customers.
And they can't build a test stand themselves,
so we build it for them. We wanna
do the best job we can for them,

(25:40):
but we don't wanna we don't wanna become
slaves to them. We wanna we wanna be
able to enjoy,
you know, a a good pay, a clean
work environment, you know, a happy work environment
as we do this very valuable and important
thing. And I think most people and I
think a lot of times
and, again, I you know, with my my
youngest son is still in his, late twenties,
but some of the jobs he's worked at

(26:00):
and the stories he's told me, it's like
he's definitely not feeling like part of a
team. You know? You get a college degree.
You go work as an engineer somewhere. And
when you don't feel like a part of
the team, there's really something wrong. Like, he's
had peace jobs during the summer, you know,
during college where he he just worked either
at a UPS facility or at a at
a injection molding place just doing piece work.

(26:21):
Right? And you really weren't there wasn't a
big team. It was like you had to
move so many boxes from here to there.
Right? So it was very goal orientated and
but, when you're in an engineering role or
a higher level role, management role, you're working
with the sales team or whatever it is,
something above just, you know, digging a ditch
or moving boxes, something where you're doing a
lot of self work.

(26:42):
That team, they feel like you're all pulling
together on the same row. I think for
most people
is very important, and and that's what I
thought of when you're talking about joy. Right?
The the joy of work. Right? Is that
you guys you're all pulling for the common
for a common goal, and you wanna achieve
it, but you also don't there's no slavery
involved. There's no, we're just gonna have to

(27:02):
work eighty hours a week, and we're gonna
just gonna have to pay ourselves half as
much as the other guy so our customer
would be happy. Of course, that would be
ridiculous.
But in any case,
so
that I guess that's kinda my reaction to
what you're saying. Do you see any of
that in, in your facility, in in your
business?
Every single day. Yeah. In fact, we had
a customer walked in. This is a few

(27:24):
years ago.
Right in in the front of our office,
as soon as you walk in, there's a
large mural with our core values. Right? Treat
the customer well, treat the team members better,
governed by productivity, not bureaucracy, etcetera, etcetera. Mhmm.
And as this customer walks in and and
he looks at core value number one, treat
your customers well, treat your team members better.
Mhmm. And he kind of cocks his head

(27:45):
and looks at me and he says, I
think you had that backwards.
Shouldn't you be treating your customers the best
and then your employees?
And I thought it was such an an
interesting,
statement to make, you know, and I explained
my reasoning, which was,
ultimately, we of course, we have to treat
our customers exceptionally well. We need to bring,

(28:07):
profound value to them or or they're not
gonna come back, and we understand that. The
best way to accomplish that goal of of
treating our customers well and getting them what
they want
is to treat our team members so well
that they are overjoyed to be here doing
this work. I mean, would you if you're
paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to have
this custom machine developed, who do you want

(28:28):
working on it? The guy who's just showing
up for a paycheck or the guy who
loves being there, who who enjoys working with
his team members, who feels fulfilled by the
work that he does. So it it might
sound backwards to some people, but, I mean,
if if you flip it and think about
who's gonna be the most effective at at
producing value for the end customer, it's it's

(28:49):
the team members who are being treated really
well and are happy there.
Yeah. And I think a lot of times,
we we they we'd people do think that
that's backwards because they think that, you know,
this is your job, so you should be,
miserable doing it.
And and you should wait on your customer
like they are the second coming. And it's
like, no. A better situation is the customer

(29:11):
is overjoyed to do work with you
because they know you're gonna give them a
great product,
and they know your staff is exceptional
and top top of the top of the
industry.
And so they would expect that if you
wanna keep your highly talented staff that produces
these phenomenal machines,
then you're gonna have to treat them extremely
well. You're gonna have to treat them more
than just a customer who's you know, buy

(29:34):
something every once in a while. You gotta
treat them like the true members of your
team, your family,
and that they are the they are the
they're the golden they're the golden, they're the
goose that lays the golden egg. Right?
You can have customers can come and go,
but if you don't have these people producing
these awesome pieces of equipment, then what's left
for the company? And I think we I've
seen a lot of companies over the years

(29:54):
kinda
really go down in the tubes because they
were treating their people so horribly. They couldn't
get anybody good to stay with them. And
that in the in the short run, the
the lower price you may be charging
may help business.
But I think in the long run, you
know, if you have just so many different
issues with your production,
eventually, you're just not gonna get any more
orders. And, yeah, that that's just what I've

(30:16):
seen from my experience.
So
we've talked a lot about these different topics.
Right? How how does this or or
does this segue us into what you think
the most important
thing in in in automation
is? Like, what is like, if if people
are looking at, like, whether you're an OEM,
an integrator,

(30:36):
or an end user, I mean, when as
we're focusing on, you know, trying to trying
to answer the question we put in the
title of the podcast,
Have we gotten close to that? Are we
ready to talk about what you what you
and your company say that is? I think
so. Yeah. We're ready for the grand reveal.
This is not gonna be a shock to
anyone after we've danced around the the topic
of culture.

(30:57):
The the most underrated skill
in automation,
in my opinion,
is is people,
is making people happy
and,
the the soft skills. Right? It's a lot
of people you can learn the technical skills
at college,
but there's there's not really or on the
job. There are not many places where you

(31:17):
can learn the people skills. Right? How to
communicate, how to get along, the soft skills
of engineering, I like to call them. There's
a book called Culture Code
by Daniel Coyle.
And, he cites three pillars
of building great culture that ultimately the purpose
of culture, right? If we go back to
our governing principles and supporting behavior, why do

(31:39):
we care about culture?
Who cares, right, good culture, bad culture? Well,
the reason, the why is because culture leads
to good people. And and that's ultimately the
objective here is is to build
wonderful people who are happy about what they
do and and understand,
you know, how to communicate, how to get
along with others.
And, in in this book Culture Code, he

(32:01):
he talks about three principles
that are are most effective for
establishing environments,
cultures in which people can thrive. And the
first one is is build safety. The second
one is share vulnerability.
And then the third one is establish person
purpose. We've talked about,
pipelines purpose already.

(32:21):
By the way, on the topic of purpose,
you know,
again, companies some companies will have these just
kind of generic, like, platitudes that don't really
mean much. Right?
I think the purpose needs to be it
needs to be like
a just cause, I think is what Simon
Sinek calls it. He's got a couple wonderful

(32:41):
books,
The Infinite Game and and Start With Why,
but he refers to purpose as as a
just cause. It needs to be something that
is,
transcends just, you know, the the the technical
side of work. And so ours promote joy
in the lives of our team members.
People hear that, and they're motivated by it.
I I've I've received so many

(33:05):
applicants for jobs here who say, hey. I
I read about your culture, and I I
love it. I love what you're doing there.
I would love to work there. Like, it
means something to people on a deep human
level.
It's not just let's go out and make
money. Of course, making money is important too,
but,
there has to be purpose behind it.
Anyway, I I had a, an example of

(33:25):
that first principle, build safety. Right? People need
to feel safe in in order to develop
their their skills.
And unfortunately,
there was a time in the past at
Pipeline, our company, where, we weren't doing so
hot. You know, there were a few reasons
for this, but work was pretty slow. And,
I could see the writing on the wall
that, unfortunately, we're gonna have to let some

(33:47):
people go.
And,
I,
this was another another kind of pivotal moment
for me as, as a business owner as
a because I hadn't had to do this
ever before. Right? And I thought, okay, How
how do I do this? How do we
do this in a a humane
way for our team?
And so the first thing I did was

(34:07):
I I told the team what was happening.
I said, hey.
Everyone was probably aware that we've been slow
for a while. Here are our financials. Like,
I actually show them the the full p
and l. Right? Like, here's what's going on.
Unfortunately, we're we're we're gonna have to we
started with a few furloughs, and I said,
we're gonna have to furlough some people if
this doesn't change in the next thirty days.

(34:28):
Mhmm. And I was really
reluctant to say that because I didn't wanna
scare people. Right? I didn't want people to
think, oh, shoot. I'm gonna lose my job.
I better just bail right now and go
look for something new. I was really worried
that that would happen. I I certainly didn't
wanna lose any of our, like, our our
best core team members.
But I thought, you know, core value number

(34:48):
one, I think the right thing to do
is to tell people
where we are and what might happen.
And, and and sure enough, things did not
turn around. And we did have to furlough
some people and eventually let some people go.
But
not a single person was upset with me
when they were furloughed or or let go.
In fact, I had so many people on
the team contact me and say, hey. I've

(35:08):
never been at a company where they were
this upfront and, like, told us what's going
on. Thank you.
None of the core team members left,
and, you know, it it sucked that we
had to lose some people. But in the
end, we were we were stronger for it,
and, everyone just really appreciated that that openness.

(35:30):
Yeah. Yeah. And I I can think back
to some of the great people I worked
with who, you know, went through
at our monthly meetings and talked about earnings
before interest and taxes and,
you know,
revenues
and, you know, really helps you
I think it's easy for somebody to
just assume that this is a big company.
They just make lots of money, and I

(35:52):
just come show up eight to five, and
everything's gonna be great. And and in most
cases, that's not the case. Now the bigger
the company, the less visibility you'll have into
that.
But, you know, the smaller company, the more
visibility you have into that. And I think
that's important.
And, you know, a lot of times,
you know, this this cycles to the economy.
Things go up and those goes down, and

(36:13):
people have you know? Most companies I've worked
with, they've been layoffs
over time. So it's not it's never pleasant,
but it's part of it's part of the
cyclic economy that, we're we're we've been through
this this last last many decades.
That said,
I feel like we've left something out. Is
there anything else you wanted to bring up
before we wrap up and talk about I

(36:34):
wanna talk about your podcast again. I wanna
talk about the expo again. But, what are
the things as far as,
you know, people? And that that really it's
people and culture that are the most important
things in in our industry today. Do you
wanna Yeah. Can you expand on that at
at all? Yeah. Yeah. There are a couple
of specific,
topics or or principles that I've noticed,

(36:56):
a pattern over the years with with engineers,
when it comes to their nontechnical
skills, right, their communication skills.
One is that engineers
generally
don't love asking for help. And it's not
because they're prideful.
It's because
as technical professionals,
what we love doing is solving problems.

(37:18):
Mhmm. So it's fun for us to sit
and, like, work through a problem and just,
you know, spend whatever time we need to
solving that problem.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work so well on the
commercial side of things. Right? So
a skill that I try to cultivate here
at Pipeline
and with engineering groups that I I I
speak at
is, the skill of asking for help early.

(37:41):
There there's a a non engineering example I
have. I have engineering examples as well, but,
I don't wanna throw anyone under the bus.
So I'll share a non engineering example.
My team and myself, we were at a
a large trade show a couple years ago,
And,
I had recently purchased a,
a Rivian R1T

(38:01):
truck, and I I love the Rivian. I
won't I'm not afraid to admit it. I'm
a fanboy. I love the company. I love
the product. I love everything about it. But
it was my first EV.
And,
I I wasn't super familiar with it yet.
So here we are at, the hotel
in the morning getting ready to leave to
go to the trade show, and I could
not get the charger out of the port.

(38:22):
We're, you know, we didn't wanna pull too
hard, of course. Yeah. And, you know, we're
engineers who are like, okay. There's a latch
in there and the mechanism's not disengaging.
How do we get it off? And, I
mean, we we were starting to get to
the point where, like, we're getting flashlights and
tools out. We're about to take things apart.
Right? And we probably spent, like, ten minutes
trying to figure this out and and didn't

(38:42):
figure it out. And when I saw the
toolbox come out and I was like, alright.
Hold hold on, guys. Let's let's not do
that.
We just called Rivian support
and we said, this is what's happening.
How do we get it out?
And in five seconds, they told us how
to get that charge charger out of the
port. It was so simple. It was just
something that I had neglected to do because

(39:04):
I wasn't super familiar with it.
But the point is
spend some time trying to figure it out
on your own. Build that muscle because that
is important,
but don't spend an obscene amount of time
trying to figure it out yourself.
Ask someone who knows how to do it.
Try for whatever a reasonable period of time
is, and that depends on the scope of

(39:25):
the task. Right? Might be thirty minutes. It
might be a few hours. May might be
a few days,
but but ask for help soon. It's it's
okay to do that. And it it will
be so much better for you and your
business if you can learn to do that.
Another one of these soft skills is
apologizing
when you're wrong. You know, we all make

(39:46):
mistakes. It's
understandable. It's expected. We're human. We make mistakes.
That's fine. Just apologize when you've made a
mistake.
Another non engineering example of this long time
ago, probably twenty years ago, I was driving
down the road, came to a stoplight, and
it was turning red. And so I I,
I I changed lanes probably kind of abruptly.

(40:07):
I can't remember why I didn't change lanes,
but I did. And then I stopped at
the light. And all of a sudden, I
see this motorcyclist
come up on the side of me. And
he's yelling and he's gesticulating
and and I realize he's he's looking at
me. Right? He's this big dude tattooed up,
like, not the kind of guy I would
wanna mess with. I'm not a a big
guy myself. I was like, oh, crap. What

(40:28):
have I
done? And I rolled my window down. He
said, you cut me off. You almost, you
know, side swiped me out of my motorcycle.
You could have caused an accident here. And
I realized that he was right. I I
I didn't, like, check before, not well enough.
And I just said first thing I said
was, I'm so sorry. You're totally
right. It's my fault. I'm in the bad.

(40:49):
Are are you okay?
And it was
amazing how this guy went from a level
10 of of anger and fury down to
zero just like that. He said,
I'm okay. Don't worry about it. And that
was it. Right? A simple apology. These things,
they seem small, but the soft skills, they
matter so so much.

(41:10):
The last one I wanna talk about
is being a a principle that that, I
teach here at Pipeline called being respectfully aggressive.
Now time is a big deal in our
industry. We need to get things done fast.
And it seems like the
the the more the years march by, the
the faster,
our customers' expectations are that that we can

(41:31):
get things done. And this partially goes back
to asking for help. Right?
There there there's a way to ask for
things to be done
more quickly
and a way to to not I'm gonna
go back to Rivian here, my my fanboy.
So they have, mobile servicing that they'll do

(41:51):
for your vehicle if something's wrong. There was
something wrong with my vehicle, and I called
up and said, hey. I'd love for your
mobile,
servicing to come out. And they said, great.
We're about a month out right now. I
was like, ugh, a month. I don't It
wasn't a critical item, so I said, okay.
Fine. I'll I'll wait for a month. But
then I thought, you know, I'd really love
to get this taken care of sooner than
a month. And I I called them back

(42:13):
the next day, and I said, hey. I'm
scheduled for a month from now, but is
there any way we could do it, like,
next week? And I was super nice about
this. Right? Respectfully
aggressive.
And, they said, you know what? Not the
mobile, but
I think we might be able to get
you in, like, in the shop if if
you could do that. I said,
that's not ideal, but sure. I'll do that

(42:33):
so I can get in earlier. And,
then I thought, you know,
we scheduled it for, like, the the following
Thursday or something. They said, next Thursday is
a lot better than a a month from
now, but, yeah, I sure would like to
get it taken care of even earlier than
that.
So I I I think this time I
may have texted them or something. I was
like, hey. I'm scheduled for next Thursday. There's

(42:54):
probably no way you can do this, and
I totally understand. You've got, you know, plenty
of customers that you're supporting.
Is there any way that I could maybe
get in Monday instead?
And they said, you know what? We're not
sure if we can get you in Monday,
but give us a few hours to look
into it, and and we'll get back to
you. So this was on a,
a, a Thursday
that I had sent this last message. The

(43:16):
next morning, Friday,
a mobile tech shows up at my house.
And he says, we had a cancellation. We
saw your notes, and I'm here. So it
went from a month out to next Thursday
to requesting next Monday to the very next
day, Friday. And so this this principle of
re being respectfully
aggressive,
it can dramatically

(43:37):
move the needle in your projects. I can't
tell you how many times we've had vendors
say, it's gonna take us three weeks to
get this part to you. And I'll be
like, guys, respectfully aggressive. Call them up. Be
nice about it, but let them know what
we want, what we need,
and and ask them not can this be
done, but how can we get this part
by, you know, two days from now or

(43:58):
or or whatever it is. And it it
has moved mountains, that principle being respectfully aggressive.
So those are a few
of the common themes that I've seen when
it comes to, like, the soft skills of
engineering
and and people development.
Yeah. You know, and I I would add
to that too. A lot of times, it's
it's so easy to assume the other person

(44:19):
knows your state of mind or knows your
urgency,
but that's not always true. And I've I've
I know in just in my history of
people upset they needed a PLC
quickly, but when they called and they said,
do you have that PLC? It's like, no.
They're back ordered for a month. They just
said, oh, okay. And they hung up, and
then they get all mad with their with
their staff.

(44:40):
And it was like, woah. If you told
me this is emergency, I mean, there's several
different things we can do. If you just
want a plain Jane one off the shelf,
you don't wanna pay any special shipping or
yeah. Then, yeah, they're backed up a month.
But if you have an emergency, let's say
you have to you have to bill it
this week or you have to install it
this weekend or, you know, you're in a
down situation. There's like, look. You have to

(45:01):
tell us if you're down. If you're down,
we do anything. We'll take it out of
our out of the showroom. We'll we'll go
to another customer who has spears and buy
one back. I mean,
don't assume that the the person you talked
to knows
again,
maybe they just get off the phone with
a a family member. Maybe there's some hardship
going on in the family. Maybe somebody got

(45:22):
hurt. Maybe somebody's in an accident.
Don't assume that they're a 100% dialed in.
You know, if you have
an urgent need, you know, be respectful like
you said,
but be aggressive too. Don't settle for no
right away.
And,
and and, you know, sometimes,
no matter how
how forceful you are, it doesn't change it

(45:42):
doesn't change the situation. But,
in any case, I agree with that. The
you know, another thing too is,
asking for help and then sharing
sharing what you learn. Right? I think these
are very important things. So I used to
love going to the factory, talking to the
product managers, and then coming back and sharing
that with the engineers,
saying, oh, there's this new thing you could
do here. You like, you're Arabian. You may

(46:04):
not this isn't obvious, but you're gonna love
it because it's gonna save you tons of
time. So you go here, you do this,
and then look at what that gives you.
Right? And so you can always have
insight into why the software is designed a
certain way. But if you know of a
trick or a feature or something that you
can do
to to make lives easier, then share it.
And I know there were so many cultures

(46:25):
that I got the experience
where sharing information
you know, The people always thought that I
can't share any of my secrets because when
it comes time for the layoffs, you know,
I gotta be show that I have value
and that I know things other people don't.
And, you know, god bless you if that's
what you think, but that's not I've never
been that way.
Share everything. Save people pain. Save people agony.

(46:46):
Help them be more efficient. You know? Be
be a true team member. Nobody wants a
ball hog. I played basketball as a kid.
Nobody wants a ball hog. They want people
who are gonna pass it to whoever's open.
Right? That's right. Absolutely.
Attitude. But, also, you know, I have this,
issue with my car. I have a I'm
a Dodge Charger owner,
and the damper wasn't closing. So in the
summer, it's only 95 here in the summer,

(47:07):
not a hundred hundred and ten. But in
any case, the dampers weren't closing, and it's
been this way for a while. And I'm
like, ugh. I don't wanna take apart all
the different now I'm thinking that one of
the the the the ducks is stuck and
there's maybe some leaves or something in there.
And I'm like, this is gonna be nightmarish.
You know, should I get one of those
telescock
telescoping,
cameras to go through all the ducks if

(47:29):
I could find it? And so I was
really just dreading it. And then I said,
I'm gonna research this. Maybe I'll get lucky.
Right? Maybe it's in in in this in
researching, I found it was a $30 part.
It was actually a humidity sensor that's mounted
right on the side of my my mirror
on my dashboard
that stops that from closing.
And I'm like, really? In literally ten minutes,

(47:51):
I had it off and back on, And
now I have cool air conditioning again. Beautiful.
And it's like, if I hadn't if I
hadn't I just imagine I could dismantle all
the ducks, taking apart the dashboard. I could
have done so many things. You know, wasted
so much time just to find out, you
know, just with the you know, hey. I
and then a lot of times, you don't
have luck when you search on these things.
You don't find the answer you're looking for.

(48:11):
I know it's frustrating, but, you know, if
you know somebody, you can call them and
ask them. I think that's when humans are
best is when we're working with each other,
helping each other,
and and also educating each other on these
type of things. So just a couple stories
to add to what you are talking about.
I love it. Thank you for adding, though,
Sean. Yeah. Now I wanna make sure as
we come to the end of the show,

(48:32):
I do wanna make sure we cover,
the expo again. So let's go through that,
and then we'll talk a little bit about
your podcast before we close out. So, give
us all the details again. If somebody just
tuned in or maybe didn't have a pen
when we talked about it earlier, now they're
they're ready to text themselves, so they got
a pen to write this down on. Tell
us the details about the expo one more
time.
Yeah. The the innovative format that we're doing

(48:53):
here is,
again, you're not showing up and just getting
a a brochure
or,
a flyer from a vendor. You're receiving meaningful
training on technical
topics. Right? So I talked a little bit
about there's like FEA
and,
PCB design and programming robots and motion control,

(49:13):
linear motors, GD and T, all these different
things.
We we have we have, I think, 35
instructors,
and some of these instructors are actually teaching
two topics. So there are,
call it, I don't know, 35 plus, maybe
40 ish different, training topics that you can
sign up for.
There's a event website.

(49:35):
And once you register for the event, you
have access to the event website where you
can see all of the different training sessions.
You can see the training sessions even before
you register, of course, but you can see
the time slots where all those different training
sessions are scheduled.
You sign up for as many as you
want. Conceivably, you could do up to a
dozen.
It's a two day event, six hours per

(49:56):
day, and each of these training sessions is
thirty to sixty minutes. So it's kind of
a crash course. Some of them are are
more basic one zero one type courses. Others
are more advanced, you know, graduate level, call
it,
courses for the, academic analogy.
And and and that's it. So, just outside
of Phoenix, Arizona,
October,

(50:17):
that's a Tuesday and a Wednesday,
show up, and and we're gonna have a
good time in person. It's all about learning
and education,
connecting with other like minded engineers.
The focus is really on on really truly
practical
information and knowledge that that you can go
back to work and start using right away
and sharing with with your team members.

(50:37):
Many of the,
exhibitors are are gonna be giving away,
tools or materials that you can take back
and and share with your team so that
you're not the only one who benefits from
this training.
Yeah. And so, give us the website again.
Pdexpo.engineer.
So pdexp0.engineer.

(50:59):
And, guys, I will try to get that
in the show notes. So wherever you're watching
or listening, whether it be YouTube or Spotify,
iTunes, the automation blog,
you'll have access to those links so you
don't have to write all that down. But
I did want you to go through it.
A lot of people do listen or they're
walking the dog or mowing the grass or
whatever.
And so I wanted to make sure we
gave that out. Very easy to remember, folks.
But please check that out. So valuable training.

(51:22):
I think you said it was, $2.95.
It's
very difficult to find at that price point.
And check out the website and see if
there's something either for yourself or maybe for
one of your junior people that would make
sense, especially if you're in driving distance.
But even for that price, it's, and, typically,
the hotels in that area are fairly reasonable

(51:43):
because of where it's located. It sound like
you're, you know, New York City. Right? Or
Right. You know, downtown. Right? So in any
case, check it out and, let if you
do attend or you have somebody attend, let
us know. We want your feedback. I know
we got a several weeks here before it
actually takes, takes off, but I will remember
that we had this podcast. So please feel

(52:03):
free to come back to the show on
any platform and leave your comments. Let me
know what you think. And, you know, if
I was in the area, I'd definitely be
checking it out. With that said, let's talk
a little bit about your podcast before we
end here. So you you mentioned it earlier.
What is it's an engineering podcast. So tell
us a little bit about what is the
podcast,
what's it called, what do you cover, and
where can people tune in?

(52:24):
It's called being an engineer,
and you can find it on all the
major podcast platforms,
Apple, Spotify, etcetera, etcetera.
And this this whole thing started, over five
years ago. So we're in season six right
now. We have over 300 episodes
that are out there.
We release a new episode every week, and
we just interview

(52:45):
engineers,
largely senior level engineers, but sometimes we'll have
newer engineers in there as well. And we
ask them about how they do their work.
You know, what are some pro tips, some
insights that you can share with us to
help us work better, to help us become
better at, this this profession of engineering.
And,

(53:05):
there's some some really cool episodes out there.
There's, we have the the founder of SolidWorks,
John Hirschdick. He was a guest.
We had, the,
the flight director for the Mars Curiosity
Mission, David Oh, from,
JPL, the Jet Propulsion Lab. He had some
really cool stories about, you know, being the
first person to see this,

(53:26):
rover land on on Mars and living on
Martian time for, like, six weeks as as
the,
rocket flew up there.
Yeah. So, anyway, lots of episodes out there.
We don't we don't get super technical. Occasionally,
we will go into a a technical topic
and talk about it a little bit, but

(53:46):
it's it's it's more along the lines of,
how do you do your work and and
what are some pro tips that you can
share with the rest of us.
That's awesome. That's great. So, guys, check that
out. I know I only do a podcast.
We we don't we don't do one every
day of the week. So,
I love having other podcasters on to talk
about what they have because I know most
of us have 10 commutes per week we

(54:07):
need to fill up with a podcast
or 10 you know, five days or seven
days a week we had to walk the
dog or whatever you do when you do
your podcast. But in any case, Aaron, I
wanna thank you so much for coming on,
and I wanna wish you a lot of,
success with the event. And I would love
to have you back on in the future
to talk about, you know, what you've learned
over the coming months and what happened at
the event and also,

(54:29):
talk more about your podcast and maybe start
go over some of your favorite episodes with
other different engineers. But for now, I think
we're gonna wrap it up. I'm looking at
the time. Aaron, thank you again for coming
on the automation podcast.
Thank you so much, Sean. I appreciate you
having me on. Well, I hope you guys
enjoyed our conversation. I know I enjoyed talking
to Aaron about all those different topics. And

(54:49):
I also wanna thank Pipeline
for sponsoring this episode so we could release
it to you completely ad free. Thank you,
Pipeline. We really appreciate your support. Also, don't
forget there's a $50 off coupon on your
screen now. If you wanna go to the
PDXpo,
check it out. You don't find many, two
day training sessions that cost just $295.

(55:09):
Also, don't forget to check out Aaron's podcast
and tell him we sent you.
He has a lot of great guests that
have been on. He has over 300 episodes.
And, it may be something you guys enjoy
watching or listening to. And with that, I
just wanna thank you guys again for tuning
in. I wanna wish you all good health
and happiness. And until next time, my friends,
peace.

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