Manufacturing Transformed: Real Shops, Real Stories

Gurecky Manufacturing, a third-generation family-owned machine shop, has evolved from humble beginnings in a garage to a 42,000-square-foot facility with over 60 employees.

Founded in 1983 by Kellen Montpetit’s grandfather, the company has long served the oil and gas sector, though recent efforts aim to diversify into aerospace and other industries. 

Kellen, now part of the ownership group, an...

Dan Fifer, Founder of Lane4 Precision, shares his unconventional journey into manufacturing after a 20-year career in medical device engineering. Frustrated by long lead times in R&D, he set out to build a high-performance machine shop to support fast-paced development cycles.

Despite having no prior machining experience, he took a leap of faith, selling his house to buy a Citizen L20 Swiss screw machine a...

Paramount Machine, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a well-established and highly diversified machine shop with around 70 employees and a wide range of machining capabilities. They specialize in CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machine work, including complex operations such as multi-axis and five-axis machining, and serve multiple industries, particularly the medical, defense, and x-ray equipment manufacturing sector...

End 2 End Manufacturing didn’t start with high-tech machines or enterprise systems. It began as a contract welding shop focused on responsiveness, trust, and doing right by the customer. 

As the company grew, adding CNC machining, design, and prototyping capabilities, it became clear that tribal knowledge and whiteboards couldn’t sustain the pace. That’s where Gioni Bianchini, General Manager, saw an oppor...

Shops can lose money quietly due to missed deadlines, rushed shipping, and confusion that no one wants to admit. The real issue is often buried in scattered paper records and knowledge locked in one person’s head. It feels normal until survival is at risk.

At Serbin Machining, there was no pretending things would improve on their own. New owners saw the chaos immediately and decided to invest in ProShop ER...

Most shop owners don’t realize how much the structure and feel of their shop impact everything, including employee morale, customer trust, and long-term growth. Caught up in production chaos, they overlook the deeper issues holding them back: clunky systems, reactive decision-making, and a culture built on fear rather than trust.

Tim Rousseau changed all that. He built Above All CNC to be clean, safe, and ...

Most shop owners don’t realize it, but the way they lead their team and the systems they use may be quietly holding them back. In this episode, we hear from Perry Kuehn of K Tooling, a shop owner with decades of experience who thought his business was running fine… until it nearly ran off the rails. What followed was a transformation that reshaped his culture, workflow, and client relationships. And it started with one...

Some machine shop owners come into the industry late. Adam Verdon was born into it.

From shredding paper in the office as a toddler to operating machines as a teenager, Adam grew up at G.V. Industries, the precision machining company his father founded in 1978 after returning from Vietnam. Today, he’s not just leading the company, he’s reshaping it.

With a deep respect for GV’s history and a c...

Plenty of people still picture manufacturing as dark, dirty, and dangerous. That image sticks, even though the real day-to-day inside many shops couldn’t look more different. But when perception lags behind reality, it’s no wonder few young people see themselves in roles like toolmaker or machinist. 

Darryl Gratrix didn’t grow up knowing he’d land in the trades. He went the university route first. Nearly three decades into his care...

Shop owners are so deep in the daily grind that they don’t see how outdated systems are quietly setting limits on their business. When processes feel "good enough," it’s easy to miss how much time, money, and opportunity are leaking out of a business every day.

Ben Dunn didn’t come from machining, he came from hospital administration. And that fresh perspective made it impossible for him to ignore the old ...

Running a shop often means wearing every hat and holding every answer. For Andy Reinwald at Ripley Machine, that translated to years of nonstop work, nearly no time off, and the weight of every open order living in his head. It was sustainable until it wasn’t.

Things came to a head after a rough year in 2016. Revenue was slipping, customer service was lagging, and the company was running on outdated system...

Most shop owners don’t realize how much stress is baked into their day-to-day. They’re running jobs, juggling people, chasing parts—and slowly getting used to the constant pressure. For Phil Gurecki, it was normal to be the only one who knew where everything was, how it worked, and what came next. Until it wasn’t.

As Accurate Machine grew, so did the complexity. Assemblies got tougher. Tooling got chaotic. Binders multiplied. And t...

Most machine shops are filled with skilled workers, powerful machines, and a relentless drive to get parts out the door. But behind the scenes, inefficiencies can quietly eat away at profitability, morale, and even long-term survival. Many shops rely on outdated systems, fragmented information, and tribal knowledge that vanishes when key employees leave. The result? Missed deadlines, costly mistakes, and constant firefighting.

Marv...

Most job shops turn to ERP systems expecting more efficiency but end up with more headaches, more spreadsheets, and more frustration. Most ERPs weren’t built for job shops—high-mix, low-volume work, constant scheduling changes, and the need for real-time visibility. Instead of fixing the chaos, they add layers of complexity, leaving shops struggling to keep up.

Traditional ERP systems were designed for large-scale manufacturing, wh...

Most manufacturers don’t realize just how much inefficiency is baked into their daily operations—until they start pulling back the layers. That was the case for Johnny Goode, President of MSP Manufacturing, who stepped into the family business in 2020 and immediately saw opportunities for change. 

Paper-based processes, siloed systems, and hidden inefficiencies were costing the shop time, money, and agility. But change wasn’t easy—...

In this episode of Manufacturing Transformed, I sit down with Ron Wallace, the owner of Ace Machining, a leading job shop located in Nova Scotia, Canada. Ron shares the remarkable story of how he went from starting his business with just a few machines to now overseeing a thriving operation with advanced equipment like Swiss lathes, waterjets, and five-axis mills.

Ron’s journey has been filled with growth, challenges, and innovatio...

Zimmer Design & Manufacturing, an ITAR-registered AS9100 Contract Manufacturing machine shop in Austin, TX, has experienced remarkable growth—70% since its launch in 2020. 

Founder Adam Zimmer started the company in his garage, crafting cigar stands and ashtrays as a hobby with a manual lathe and mill. A pivotal moment came when he purchased equipment and customers from a friend closing his shop, which set the stage for his transit...

In this episode of Manufacturing Transformed, Brannon McKinney, General Manager at Faircloth Machine Shop, shares the incredible evolution of a small repair shop into an AS9100-certified leader in aerospace manufacturing. 

When Brannon joined Faircloth 16 years ago, fresh out of community college, the shop had just eight employees and relied on conventional machines and a homemade ERP system. Today, with the help of ProShop ERP, th...

This third-generation precision machining business is thriving and growing thanks to a well-executed vision, a focus on culture, and the adoption of the best technology, like ProShop ERP. The transformation that CARR Machine has seen in the past five years has been nothing short of remarkable.  Jim and Ryan are aligned in the vision of the company, they use their core values to drive the hiring, firing and alignment of their team, ...