Welcome to another episode of The Maintainers: A Blue Cap Community Podcast. Today Jake & David are sitting down with Russel Tatro, Maintenance Supervisor at Cadence Inc. Russel offers great insights as he navigates his teams through evolving technical innovations, particularly in relation to maintenance monitoring.
Welcome to another episode of The Maintainers: A Blue Cap Community Podcast. Today Jake & David are sitting down with Russel Tatro, Maintenance Supervisor at Cadence Inc. Cadence Inc. is a leading full-service contract manufacturer of medical and drug delivery devices that employs over 700 people worldwide and has additional locations in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Costa Rica. Having been with Cadence Inc. for over a year, Russel offers great insights as he navigates his teams through evolving technical innovations, particularly in relation to maintenance monitoring.
As more software and hardware advances are being made in the manufacturing and maintenance spaces, many people are left wondering how well implementation can be, especially amongst an aging workforce. Russel shares what he looks for in modern software, what strategies he employs to ensure there is buy-in from his team members, and where he thinks there opportunities exist when looking towards the future.
David & Jake also explore Russel’s almost decade experience with Electric Boat, who he credits for much of the leadership expertise he has today. You’ll hear Russel tell an old story about what happened when he forgot to bring the one fitting he needed for a routine check from the Navy. Let that be a lesson for you!
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Guest Bio
Russel Tatro is a Maintenance Supervisor with Cadence Inc., where he’s been since February of 2022. Cadence is a full-service contract manufacturer and leading supplier of advanced products, technologies, and services to medical, aerospace, automotive, and commercial companies worldwide. Russel has a HUGE CV and began at the age of 18 working on betting machines, which started his passion of electrical control systems. That passion has carried on throughout his career in many sectors of the manufacturing industry.
As you’ll hear in today’s episode, Russel was a maintenance electrician with Electric Boat for nearly a decade, and he credits much of his leadership skills to his time there. Since then, he’s been with Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., Quikrete, Doncasters Group, and Denison Pharmaceuticals.
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Guest Quote
“When you try to implement anything new, whether it's something in maintenance or something across the manufacturing floor, even in production, I think you always get a little bit of resistance to change. If you can prove to the key players that there's a value into why they're gonna put a request in, there's a value into why I want you to carry a tablet around, I think that the buy-in's a lot better.” – Russel Tatro
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Time Stamps
*(01:28) Opening Icebreaker
*(02:35) Russel's Background
*(05:45) Applying skills from different trades to manufacturing
*(08:22) Segment 01: The Maintainer Mashup
*(09:34) Incorporating modern tech into your maintenance routine
*(12:39) Why you need to give your technicians singular, direct tasks
*(16:48) Section 02: What's in Your Toolkit?
*(19:47) What to look for in your software
*(22:45) A lesson from the dry dock
*(24:15) Segment 03: The Future of Factories
*(28:41) Segment 04: Fix It Funnies
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Links
[00:00:00] Maintenance? Maybe we should call it maintenance.
[00:00:04] I'll fix it. I'm gonna fix it. Concentrated.
[00:00:08] Maintain it.
[00:00:09] Maintain control. Maintenance complete. This is
[00:00:15] David Lee: The Maintainers, a Bluecap community podcast. My name is David Lee with Traction. And I'm also here with the man, the myth, the legend, Jake Hall, the manufacturing millennial.
It's
[00:00:26] Jake Hall: great to be here. And on today's episode, we're joined with a special guest, Russell Tatra, who is the maintenance supervisor for Cadence. He has an incredible background and you're going to have a lot of fun listening to this episode today. When he was 18 years old, he started working on bedding machines with his father and repairing them.
We're going to dive into a little bit of his past. He was literally working on submarines. And then of course, we're gonna talk about the current state, impact on manufacturing. And before we get into that, though, a quick word from our sponsor.
[00:00:57] VO Read: This podcast is brought to you by Traction. Traction offers streamlined hardware and software solutions designed to make maintenance more reliable and profitable.
Their AI powered condition monitoring and asset management solution predicts machine failures and unplanned downtime. Allowing clients to save an average of 10 million every trimester. It's artificial intelligence, quarterbacking your
[00:01:20] Jake Hall: maintenance. Well, thanks for joining us today, Russ. Uh, first of all, how are you doing today?
[00:01:27] Russel Tatro: Oh, great. How are you? I, you
[00:01:29] Jake Hall: know, I can't complain. It's a little rainy where I'm at, but you know, it hasn't rained for like six weeks. So I'm in, I'm enjoying the Midwest thunderstorms right now. So with that being said, we're having this conversation right now. We're having it virtually. But if you were to pick any place.
From the past that you've gone to, to have this conversation, where would you be taking David and I as a treat? Where would you be like, I want to have this conversation at a restaurant, or a vacation spot, or a fun memory? Where
[00:01:57] Russel Tatro: would that be? We would probably be going off to Charleston, South Carolina area.
Enjoy the sunshine down there.
[00:02:04] Jake Hall: Any specific spot in
[00:02:05] Russel Tatro: Charleston? I think any of the beaches, or downtown Charleston itself. Downtown Charleston atmosphere is phenomenal, so. Yeah, that's probably where we'd be headed.
[00:02:14] David Lee: Nice. Yeah, you know what? I was actually born on Charleston Naval Base. My father was stationed at the Naval Weapons Station down there, so it makes sense that you have an affinity to that area.
So, speaking of which, tell us a little bit about your background and kind of how you got started in the industry and getting yourself to where you are today.
[00:02:35] Russel Tatro: Yeah, so, as we highlighted in the beginning, I started off about 18, working on betting machines. Transitioned from there about two or three years later, two and a half years later.
I went to Electric Boat, Electric Boat, General Dynamics in Connecticut. We built submarines. I went through their electrical apprenticeship. Got a chance to do a lot of cool things there. Transitioned after the apprenticeship over to the Navy's float and dry dock. EB took over the contract to do all the preventive maintenance on that, on that dry dock.
Um, so I got the unique opportunity to serve some time on there with some great individual leaders. Um, I think that molded me into the person that I am today. After my time at Electric Boat, I spent a lot, you know, the rest of my career in manufacturing. Uh, where I've worked for some great companies. I've worked for a rolling mill, I've worked for a concrete company.
I've spent a little bit of time at a distribution center to see how that works. And transitioned my technician role into a management role by, um, leading a pharmaceutical company in the maintenance field and now here I am at Cadence, trying to lead their maintenance team.
[00:03:37] Jake Hall: So I want to start real quick on, on like your journey of, of betting machines.
Cause like when I think of betting machines, you know, casino, everything now is just a massive screen, right? It's all digital, but what were the betting machines that you were repairing? Like when it was 18, was it, was it heavy mechanical? What, what were those
[00:03:56] Russel Tatro: machines like? No, actually. So I worked at Plainfield Greyhound Park.
It doesn't exist anymore. I was hired at that young age to fix all of the light boxes. So if you, if you picture a big odds board that has, uh, all the numbers that go across it. Okay. That's just a light box and there's, there's, I think there was a series if I remember correctly. Don't quote me on it, 12 or 16 light bulbs.
And it was all relay logic. So a certain amount of relays would pull in to make a one. A certain amount of the other relays would pull in to make a two. I learned under an army engineer. He was a retired army engineer and he taught me relay logic. That fascinated me, but most of it was PC boards for the older machines.
Even then, we were working on the Windows 95, and then I remember things transitioning over to Windows NT. What was great is I, I, after the Greyhound Park, I went to Mohegan Sun. I ran all their electrical equipment for the same company inside the, the race book there. And when you opened up one of their self betting machines, it was the same as a slot machine.
So here we were in a, in a casino, people are using this machine to bet on horses and dogs or highlight at the time. But if you opened it up and you changed a couple of little chips in the board, you would have a slot machine. So I thought that was pretty fascinating to have the same kind of machines in the same building, but doing completely opposite things, right?
[00:05:13] Jake Hall: I find that interesting, right? Because when we look at all manufacturing processes, obviously they were relay driven. You know, and when, when you were doing a machining or, you know, ejection molding machine, they were all relay driven, you know, back in the day. And it's interesting to see that also bedding machines, you know, we're also relayed logic driven.
And would you say that that is like one of the things that kind of brought you into manufacturing? Because obviously sports bedding, you know, at a gray out track, isn't anything to do with manufacturing at all, but it's the same skill set,
[00:05:44] Russel Tatro: right? It is. I think, I think you can use your technician skill set across many different sectors, many different ranges.
So I think once you learn how things switch, how things are supposed to get a signal, what the input is supposed to be, what the output was supposed to be. I think at an early age, if you learn the rudimentary relay logic, right, it sets the foundation for any type of PLC driven machine. That we see today.
I, I try to teach everybody. It's the same thing, whether, whether you open up a panel and you look at an IceCube relay, or you're looking at a PLC, most of the time it's switching a switch. It's switching a signal and how it's doing that. I mean, a lot of times it differs, but the principles all the same. So
[00:06:26] David Lee: awesome.
Yeah, very interesting background you have there. Looks like you have a lot of technical experience. Very impressive, but also a lot of leadership. Thank you. Training and experience as well with the Department of Navy, but now being at Cadence, I want to hear a little bit more about your current day to day, kind of like what your concerns are, challenges, and what does that look like for
[00:06:44] Russel Tatro: you basically?
Yeah, so my day to day is set up. We come in. First thing I do is review any type of requests that might have happened overnight. Uh, we do run a round the clock shift. I cover with my technicians first and second shift. So maybe on, late on second shift, my second shift technician couldn't get to it, or third shift.
A request might have came in for maintenance. So, I look at the maintenance request, try to set priorities for the day. If something went down, that's a top priority. Other than that, we make out our request. We look at our preventive maintenance that's going to be due for the day. And I set my team off on some sort of priority.
Hey, we want to accomplish these jobs today. And we want to accomplish these PMs. Aside from that, we do have some projects that are going on. So, I try to drive those projects forward. Like any big project, the way I try to lead them is one bite at a time, right? One little bite at a time will accomplish the project.
So, when I do have a big list of things to do or a big to do list, we take one bite at a time. And by the end of the time, usually by our due dates, we get there. On top of all of the maintenance stuff, I also try to drive the safety culture at Cadence.
[00:07:53] Jake Hall: For the audience that's not familiar with Cadence, Cadence is like a full service contract manufacturer.
What types of industries do you guys touch in the manufacturing space?
[00:08:02] Russel Tatro: So at least at our site, we touch many different industries across Cadence. At our site in Rhode Island that I'm responsible for, we're more of in the medical industry. But we do dive into the automotive industry and the aerospace industry as well at other Cadence sites.
Awesome.
[00:08:18] Jake Hall: You know, we're going to move into the next segment that we call the maintainer mashup. Maintenance required.
[00:08:24] Russel Tatro: Listen, I maintain. I maintain the muscle. Maintain course. Maintain speed. I gotta maintain respect.
[00:08:34] Jake Hall: What we do is we like to dive deeper into the, the equipment, the, you know, the management style and the culture of the company.
And really, how is, how is maintenance, you know, impacting from equipment and machines to the people that's out there? So, the first question that I have is, when you think about maintenance at Cadence, what is the culture mentality behind what you see in terms of maintenance effect? I mean, it probably goes all the way back to when you were doing the bedding machines, right?
If you did maintenance on those machines, the downtime, obviously, so like, how have you viewed maintenance, I guess? Through your entire career leading up to where you're at with
[00:09:13] Russel Tatro: Cadence today. Yeah, so I think maintenance on machines is probably the most important thing we do as maintenance technicians.
If we're not touching our machines, making sure that they're operating the way they're supposed to operate, then I think that all we're doing during the course of the day is firefighting. If that was the case, I'd hire firefighters, but I hire technicians to, to stop us from having a firefight.
[00:09:34] David Lee: On that note, and also looking at your, your experience that you've had as a technician and as a leader, I want to hear a little bit about, uh, the modernization that you've seen over the last couple decades or so.
For example, with CMMSs, you're doing several projects that you mentioned. Does any of that apply to this specifically? Or tell us a little bit about, about your experience modernizing your maintenance teams. Yeah,
[00:09:57] Russel Tatro: so I, I think I've seen a huge transition, right? It went from early in my career, it was just word of mouth.
Hey, this is down, let's go attack it. And again, that gets into the firefight mentality. I've seen where companies have set that up on just an Excel spreadsheet, shared it across SharePoint, people wrote into it. Um, you'd come in as a technician or, or as a, as a lead, and you'd look at all the things that people wrote on SharePoint.
Some of them made sense, some of them didn't. To what I see today in a really involved CMMS system. We use a CMMS system that, that I not only track my preventive maintenance, I track all of my emergent repairs, all of my parts inventories, my cost across each individual work order. I'm able to pull up assets now and see that, hey, I've done 6 PMs on that machine, but within the last 6 PMs, I've also gone there 6 times to do a repair.
That ratio is probably not good, right? We'd probably want to go to PM it six times, maybe go see it once, maybe not at all, right? Or ideally, we don't have any downtime, so we don't visit it in between PMs. But now we're able to see that, analyze what that downtime was for, and then say, hey, let's put a PM in place to stop that from happening again.
And so I think the way we're able to use the data, and the data's right in front of us to manage the team is phenomenal today.
[00:11:23] David Lee: Right. And having this data available to you all now, what would you say has been the biggest shift that you've seen at Cadence? And if you've seen a bigger shift at a previous company, uh, with respect to technology, what would you say has been the
[00:11:37] Russel Tatro: biggest thing?
So again, just that implementation of that CMMS system. When I got to Cadence, we were using a legacy system where we were just kind of using the PM system to satisfy our quality system. So our quality system at Cadence is top notch. With that being said, our customers expect that our PMs are, are in place, that our PMs are getting done properly, and that the product that those machines are putting out is, is good quality product.
So, we've transitioned from that legacy system to not only running our PM system off of, off of that, that CMMS system, but now it's a cloud based system. My technicians see the repairs that need to be done on a daily basis, they all get assigned out to them. My team carries out tablets to the work field.
Now, the only thing that they see are things that I assigned to them that I want on their radar. So maybe I have a guy that has a certain PM that I want done, or a certain repair that he's familiar with. And I want it done by him. Um, he's the only one that sees that that needs to be done on his tablet.
[00:12:39] Jake Hall: I want to dive, like you just answered like half of my question.
It's how do you make sure that when a company is driving a new CMMS solution or collecting more information from equipment, how they don't feel overwhelmed. With that approach. So one of your approaches was you designate the PM through iPads and technology. What was the decision behind giving the individual specific instructions and tasks to follow versus a massive shared, I guess you could say, dashboard of objectives?
[00:13:10] Russel Tatro: So, great question, Jake. I think that when you give a technician a singular task, not that people can't manage a whole plate. But when you say, hey, I want you to go out and tackle this. They go out, they tackle that, they're able to focus on just that one task without having to focus on all the other things.
Like, hey, let me hurry up and do this real fast because I have a hundred other things on my plate. I don't want you to know about those other hundred things. I want to manage that for you and say, hey, this is the top priority that I want you to focus on. I think the quality of work goes up when the technician doesn't have to worry about the backlog of jobs.
[00:13:48] David Lee: Right. And so dealing with your technicians and your staff and doing these, you know, high tech projects in these large transitions, have you faced much friction basically implementing new technology and how have you been able to kind of deal with that and manage
[00:14:04] Russel Tatro: that? So yeah, I think when you try to implement anything new, whether it's something in maintenance or something across the manufacturing floor, even in production, I think you always get a little bit of resistance to change.
The way I combated that resistance to change, for one, it was the request, right? Through the other supervisor saying, Hey, if you, if you have a piece of downed equipment, I need you to put a request in the system. So that way it adds, adds visibility for us. Same thing for my technicians, being able to add the tablet and add those technologies.
It's just basically a value add. If you can prove to the key players that there's a value into why they're going to put a request in. There's a value into why I want you to carry a tablet around. I think that the buy in's a lot better, but I think if you just throw technologies and you say, and you try to throw too much on it at once, I think you'll get a lot of resistance and kickback and it will be more prone for failure.
So
[00:14:58] Jake Hall: I love that. How do you create that culture though? Like, I've been on manufacturing floors and something needs to be fixed, they're going on the maintenance, you know, the guy's maintenance door, and they're putting it out there, and they're putting a sticky note on his door, or they're going and knocking, and they're calling his cell phone saying, hey, yada, yada, yada, yada.
How do you create a culture that encourages the machine operators to buy into a proper communication channel for creating maintenance?
[00:15:27] Russel Tatro: I think it's just the workflow. Showing even the operators that, hey, there's a process that needs to happen. And then when they do make that request to their supervisor to put a maintenance request in, that would respond in a timely manner.
So that way, they get the buy in too. Like, hey, I told the technician time and time again that this thing was acting up and it was broke, but he never showed up. But then... He went to his supervisor, he told his supervisor, Hey, my machine's aft enough, the supervisor put a request in, and a couple hours later, maybe it was, we showed up to take care of the problem.
I think that adds to the, to the buy in. I say, hey, look, look, you followed the proper chain of command, here we are to fix your problem. Sorry your request fell off the radar a little bit, we do have a lot going on. It creates ownership. Yeah, and I think it's just that, that positive leadership. Don't go over there, and I've tried to, you know, teach my technicians, both at Cadence and other places.
Don't go over there and cop an attitude because you have to fix something. Go over there with a positive attitude. Say, hey, I'm here to help you. Partner with the production person. They might know not exactly how to fix the problem, but they'll certainly point you in the right direction. Awesome.
[00:16:35] David Lee: So, now to transition to our second segment.
We've heard about cadence and how it operates. So, I'd love to hear more about you and how you specifically excel. So, what's in your toolkit?
[00:16:48] Russel Tatro: We're gonna fix it.
[00:16:49] David Lee: Get the tool. Pick the
[00:16:51] Jake Hall: one right tool. The right tool for the right job.
[00:16:58] David Lee: You have a lot of leadership experience. You've been trained by submarine guys. And so, tell me your thoughts on how that shaped what you do on a day to day basis and the
[00:17:09] Russel Tatro: impacts of that. As you highlighted, I think my time at Electric Bolt really curved my leadership style, right? Even when I started off there in the apprenticeship as a boat electrician, somebody that was wiring the submarines, to go through all the methods in the classes and, hey, this is the proper way to wire something.
This is the proper way to terminate a junction box. To know that that's the way it is supposed to look. That's the way it's gonna perform its best. Then transitioning over to the dry dock, I had some of the best leaders there, right? Somebody that says, hey, I see that you took this apart. It has both flathead and Phillips head screws on it.
Why don't we make it all phillips head screws on it so you only have to bring one screwdriver? They've had the mentality that said, hey, don't let them wait for you. So any job that needs to happen They shouldn't be waiting on the electrician. They shouldn't be waiting on the mechanic Let's get our stuff out of the way.
So when the production needs to happen we can go So I think that kind of leadership getting us there leading from the front. I think that really helped them Mold me in my career, right?
[00:18:14] David Lee: And then I'd love to hear some more about your thoughts on your technical skills as a technician, right? And the transfer of that skill to the leadership aspect, right?
Because you got to be technically proficient for you to be professionally proficient, even from a leadership perspective. So what are your thoughts on the impacts from that quick connection
[00:18:34] Russel Tatro: there? Yeah, I think that's a, that's a, sometimes a challenging transition, right? That maybe you know how to fix something.
in a technician struggling. I try to let my technicians not struggle through a process, but at least have their own challenges so they can develop their own methods. Being able to take that step back and not look at the singular task, but at the whole picture of the facility so that way we know what our priorities are.
Um, I think that that's quite the transition that you have to undertake from a technician to a leader. But when you get down to just trying to lead your team, I think yes, you have to be proficient in the technical aspect. I also think that you have to be humble enough to know that you don't know everything.
So to to know that, hey, my technician's saying this, and maybe I think it's something a little bit different, but be humble enough to listen to what he has to say and then partner with him to, to come to the right conclusion. Right. I think it took a, a little bit of a transition for me to take a step back and say, Hey, wait, this is the way I would do the job.
But somebody's like, Hey, that's not the way we're going to do it. And be like, all right, well, I'm not the one doing it. Go ahead and do it your way. The outcome is still the same.
[00:19:47] Jake Hall: I like that. You know, I want to keep conversation like the toolkit, for example. And, you know, from that, there's a lot of decision making that happens to go on.
So I would love to know. So, from a what's in a toolkit perspective, let's switch the focus to software. When you're out there deciding what software you want to use, so let's just say for the designating tasks of your workers to go and solve and fix problems, what are the features that you look for? Like, what is the decision process behind determining is this solution going to work for us or not?
Like, what's your, what's your decision matrix look like?
[00:20:23] Russel Tatro: So... When I looked at the different software options we've had, I've used a few different systems. You certainly, if we're looking to, we want to, uh, be able to delegate our tasks by individual to be able to search by tasks by individual. So, a lot of different search criterias.
I think, uh, the asset management, being able to break down each individual asset, not only by asset type, but by maybe by department. So that way, even when my technicians are out there, they're saying, hey, I'm in, I'm in the sandblast department. These are, this is all the equipment in the sandblast department.
If they had to do that. And I have a technician that I delegate most of my Swiss CNC PMs to, right? So I want to be able to say, hey, these are all my Swiss CNC PMs. There's a category for that, that, that lists all those. And then automatically, easier for me to identify, I can automatically assign all those to him.
So at the beginning of my day, a lot of times I'll, I'll generate about 45, 50 PMs. And then, uh, the ease of just clicking multiple PMs and then assigning them to one person, right? I've had systems where I had to click into each individual one, update it, save it, and then click out. I mean, that, that becomes cumbersome.
[00:21:37] Jake Hall: Well, I think what's exciting about that too is this is where I just love software so much for manufacturing. You can look at the training and the skill sets that each individual person carries and then What I look at is you're making your life easier You're making your company's life easier and then you're eventually making when you retire one day, you know, Russ the the next guy says Oh, I know these maintenance techs carry these skill sets Yes And like it would be so hard to apply that And not a digital
[00:22:09] Russel Tatro: way.
Absolutely. And actually to your point, the other thing that that does identify is when you see the training set up and what your employees are trained at and best at, it helps you identify the gaps of where you need to get other technicians trained. So, when the technician is trained in that one instance, when he retires, you have a backup plan.
[00:22:30] David Lee: So, now, working with the technicians, for example, at the dry dock. Of course, Department of Navy, we love our stories, right? And that's essentially the culture that's driven that. Do you have any sort of stories that you'd like
[00:22:44] Russel Tatro: to share? I do have a good story from the dry dock, right? So, my direct supervisor, he was an engineer on a submarine.
When he retired, he became the dock engineer. Really great leader. I ended up becoming responsible for all the damage control equipment, all of our firefighting equipment on the dry dock. Quarterly, the Navy would come and spot check us for all of our PMs, make sure we were, we were performing our PMs properly.
They were coming to, to spot check one of our PMs. It was a firefighting system, a fixed flood CO2 system on the submarine. The PM called out, rating the, rating the tools required a certain fitting. I kept that in the damage control blocker. It was my responsibility to bring it to the PM. Morning meeting, boss says, you ready to go?
I said, ready to go boss, let's go. The Navy shows up at the dry dock, we get down to the PM, what did Russell forget? Russell forgot the only fitting we needed to get the PM done. Automatic fail on our part, a great learning lesson for me. He made me carry that little fitting around for the next month and every time he asked for it.
I had the privilege to present it, so I put, I tied it on a shoestring, hung it around my neck, and I carried it around for that, for that 30 days. That's awesome.
[00:23:54] Jake Hall: That's one way to learn, that's for sure.
[00:23:59] David Lee: Classic old school Navy style.
[00:24:01] Jake Hall: Exactly, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're making you prepare for your future, and you know, not making the same mistakes, which is actually a good segue into our next segment, which is, The future of, of factories.
[00:24:15] Russel Tatro: Meet the
[00:24:17] David Lee: future! To our futures. What future?
[00:24:19] Russel Tatro: The factory.
My factory.
[00:24:21] Jake Hall: Everybody's
[00:24:21] David Lee: factory. My
[00:24:23] Russel Tatro: factory.
[00:24:26] Jake Hall: My laws. So, we cover the new trends that are talking, that we're seeing across the country and the industry, when we're seeing adoption and stuff. But I, I think what we can think... The future of the industry, it goes with the people, that's where it starts. It's not the technology, it's the people that are driving the industry forward.
So, you know, Russ, what advice would you give to others who... You know, or maybe just starting out, it's that, it's that 18 year old kid that maybe wasn't fixing, you know, slot machines and bedding machines, but maybe they were, you know, sweeping the floor at a, at a facility or they're working at a Home Depot and now they want to go and work in manufacturing.
What advice would you give them who want to be successful, who want to grow up? You have a lot of management and leadership skills. What advice would you give to a
person?
[00:25:17] Russel Tatro: Never stop learning. Every day, try to learn something new. Ask questions when you don't know. The old adage, no question is stupid, no question is stupid, right?
If you don't know, you don't know, and people don't know what they don't know. So, if you're curious, remain curious and just keep learning. I love
[00:25:35] Jake Hall: that, like, Remain Curious. I think that'd be like a great, like, t shirt logo, or like, yeah, Remain Curious, I think would be a phenomenal tagline. So, when you're constantly expanding your curiosity, what are some of the big changes that you're seeing in the industry right now that are really going to affect the future?
You've seen the industry transform the last, you know, 20, 25 years, as you mentioned, but what's your outlook look like?
[00:26:02] Russel Tatro: I think more automation. I think we're going to see more robotics across manufacturing, especially in an industry like ours, I think we're going to transition to see more vision systems.
And what I mean by vision systems are inspection machines that are inspecting our parts to make sure that the parts we are sending are quality parts, right? And right now, some of those processes, we're relying on a human to do that. And not that humans aren't great, humans are phenomenal. But, uh, a vision system that you give it a set of inputs and you expect that output to come, I think that's, that's where we're headed.
We'll still need the people on the floor, right? Just a different role.
[00:26:38] Jake Hall: You know, it's interesting, when you look at the numbers, for example, I think the mean average of people working in manufacturing right now is like 44, 45 years old. And the mean average just across the general industry is 42. So we definitely see that manufacturing is older by a few years.
But more specifically, when we look at like, The general, almost 13 million people working in manufacturing, 51 percent of them are over the age of like 45 to 65. So we, you know, we definitely have an aging workforce in the manufacturing space. I think a lot of manufacturers are realizing that now. So what advice would you give to them that would encourage manufacturers to better motivate or incentivize younger workers to be a part of our
[00:27:23] Russel Tatro: industry?
I think that might come with partnering with local, local universities, maybe local high schools, tech schools, and being able to bring some training at an earlier age. I, I think that that's almost where we're lacking, both not only on the manufacturing floor, somebody that's interested in the, in the technical aspect of things, because they're going to a normal high school or a regular high school, and not experiencing any type of, of tech.
So I think that if manufacturers started partnering with the local, local schools, I think that would help, help the cause tremendously.
[00:27:56] David Lee: All right, so what do you imagine the future holds for us with respect to technology? You mentioned the vision system, obviously that's a cool advancement, but what else do you see coming on the forefront of things?
[00:28:08] Russel Tatro: I think as much as processes across any industry can get automated, I think we'll see that. And I think what that will do for the workforce is just make them a more technical workforce. Somebody that needs to be able to work and work with this technology. How do I operate this human machine interface? I think it's just going to up the ante on our production workers and really make them more technically advanced.
For sure. So, before
[00:28:35] David Lee: we wrap things up, we'd like to do a segment that we call the Fix It Funnies, right? The fix is in. It's making a really funny noise. Fix it. Make it funny would be great. If you could make it funny. Your fate is fixed. That's what makes
[00:28:49] Russel Tatro: it funny.
[00:28:50] David Lee: Make sure it's funny. Uh, so, before we say goodbye, would you prefer to work on a critical high visibility piece of gear or something that's a little bit more under the radar?
[00:29:01] Russel Tatro: The visual high, uh, the high visibility machinery. Awesome, so that's what you
[00:29:06] David Lee: like. Copy that. So another one here, so Red Wing boots or Danner boots? I'm a mucks guy, so I'm gonna go with mucks, but uh,
[00:29:16] Russel Tatro: which ones would you choose? So if I had to choose between the two, it would be Red Wing, but I'm a Merrill guy.
Okay,
[00:29:23] David Lee: awesome.
[00:29:26] Jake Hall: Nice. For sure, for sure. I am, I am all Red Wing just because there's a store like three minutes from me. So it works out. Nice. That works out really well for me for, for, for convenience. So, uh, the other fun thing, you know, you, you've had an awesome breadth of, of experience, but you know, Russ, if, if you were not doing maintenance.
What would, what would
[00:29:48] Russel Tatro: you be picking to do? One of two things. I'd either be a keynote speaker of some sort, or a soccer coach. I'm a New England Revolution fan. You know, I
[00:29:57] Jake Hall: haven't, uh, I haven't seen a... Uh, professional soccer game, yeah, but it's definitely on my bucket list. I heard the crowds and the energy and the excitement are just, are ecstatic.
And, and it's a, it's a fun environment to be in.
[00:30:11] Russel Tatro: I have tickets to every New England game, Jake. You make it to New England, we'll go to a game. I'll,
[00:30:16] Jake Hall: I'll take you up on that offer. So, the final question, if you, if you were to work on any piece of equipment that's out there, or a piece of machinery, and you could pick, what would that, what
[00:30:28] Russel Tatro: would that be?
I think since I've been young and I've just never done it, I think I'd work in a nuclear power plant in the power generation field. Um, I think that... Just what they're doing there is pretty neat.
[00:30:42] David Lee: Awesome. Well, thanks again for coming to our show today, Russell. It was a pleasure. This has been The Maintainers, a Bluecap Community Podcast.
So please don't forget to subscribe whenever you get your podcasts so you'll be notified as soon as our next episode goes live.
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