Welcome back to The Maintainers with Jake Hall and David Lee. In our Season 02 premiere, listen as Paul Flitcraft, the man who once maintained fighter jets and now ensures your cabinets are flawlessly made, shares his captivating journey from Navy hangars to factory floors. As the Director of Corporate Maintenance for American Woodmark Corporation, Paul has been with the company for nearly a decade.
Welcome back to The Maintainers with Jake Hall and David Lee. In our Season 02 premiere, listen as Paul Flitcraft, the man who once maintained fighter jets and now ensures your cabinets are flawlessly made, shares his captivating journey from Navy hangars to factory floors. As the Director of Corporate Maintenance for American Woodmark Corporation, Paul has been with the company for nearly a decade.
Throughout the interview, Paul brings powerful lessons about data-driven maintenance — utilizing advanced tech to prevent equipment failures and drastically cut downtime. If you’re serious about leveling up your maintenance game, you don’t want to miss his insights on predictive maintenance and AI tools.
Paul dives into the importance of creating a cohesive, collaborative team environment. Drawing parallels from his military days, he highlights how breaking down silos between departments can skyrocket efficiency. His philosophy? Real leadership is about empowering and educating your team, which he lives out by mentoring future leaders to eventually surpass him.
Additionally, Paul shares eye-opening stories about overcoming obstacles and driving cultural change in organizations. He offers Jake and David practical advice on integrating modern tools and fostering a proactive maintenance culture to revolutionize operations. Tune in for a blend of military discipline, modern tech, and heartfelt mentorship — all aimed at making your facility as reliable as a well-oiled machine.
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Guest Bio
Paul Flitcraft is the Director of Corporate Maintenance at American Woodmark Corporation, one of the nation’s largest cabinet manufacturers with over 19 facilities and 10,000 team members.
With a distinguished background in military service, where he worked on fighter jets, Paul applies his extensive knowledge of maintenance and reliability to manage large-scale operations. He is known for promoting a data-driven approach to maintenance and fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement across the organization.
Paul's unique journey from military service to corporate leadership showcases his dedication to maintaining operational excellence and supporting his team to achieve remarkable results.
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Guest Quote
"I always liked taking older things and watching them turn into something new or better. I have a
53 Chevy that I would match up against anything that you put out on the market today. I joined the military to work on fighter jets, got out and started in a manufacturing company making cabinets. And you know what? I'm still that way today. I'm a maintainer. I love watching equipment work. Somebody told me once that a successful company is only good as the maintenance department and I believe that.” – Paul Flitcraft
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Time Stamps
00:00 Episode Start
03:05 Paul’s Background
04:41 Segment 01: The Maintainer Mashup
05:10 How AWC thinks about reliability
9:29 Lessons Paul takes from his time in the Navy
12:26 Segment 02: What's in Your Toolkit?
13:08 Creating standards in both your personal and professional shop floors
15:38 The importance of training the next in line
21:06 Standing up for your convictions
23:18 Segment 03: The Future of Factories
24:21 Implementing automation succesfully
28:27 Working to prevent downtime across the business
32:29 Hurdling corporate obstacles when implementing new technology
34:40 Segment 04: Fix It Funnies
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Links
[00:00:00] Voiceover: Maintenance? Maybe we should call it maintenance. I'll fix it. I'm going to fix it. Concentrate it. Maintain it. Maintain control. Maintenance complete.
[00:00:11] David Lee: This is The Maintainers, a Bluecap Community Podcast. My name is David Lee, Director at Tractian and your host for today's show. And
[00:00:21] Jake Hall: I'm Jake Hall, the manufacturing millennial and industry advocate to move manufacturing and maintenance forward.
[00:00:27] Jake Hall: On today's episode, we're joined by Paul Flitcraft. He's the Director of Corporate Maintenance at American Woodmark Corporation, one of the nation's largest cabinet manufacturers with over 10, 000 team members. Today, you're going to hear from Paul with his military service and where he's at today, how he managed over 19 facilities and what he does to promote reliability across his organization.
[00:00:50] Jake Hall: But first, a quick word from our sponsor.
[00:00:55] Voiceover: This podcast is brought to you by Tractian. Tractian offers streamlined [00:01:00] 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 eliminates unplanned downtime, generating an average of 38 percent more productivity for clients worldwide.
[00:01:20] Voiceover: It's artificial intelligence quarterbacking your maintenance.
[00:01:26] Jake Hall: Well, thanks for
[00:01:26] Paul Flitcraft: joining us today, Paul. First off, how are you doing? I'm doing great. Um, busy as can be, even during a slow time, you know, for maintenance guys, it's, uh, it's business as normal and it's always busy.
[00:01:38] Jake Hall: Yeah. The one thing I learned about maintenance is there really never is a slow time.
[00:01:42] Jake Hall: It's just maybe a little bit less stressful time of how many, Fires you're putting out or how many fires you're trying to, uh, prevent. But you know, to kick things away when you're not in the facility, when you're not just running around, where do you take your R& R? What is your escape that you like to have?
[00:01:58] Paul Flitcraft: Actually, I can honestly say [00:02:00] I'm a, I'm a lucky person. Um, I'm an outdoors person. I've a bit of a vagabond since the time I was a kid. I always loved to travel. I live in a 40 foot RV and, you know, I, I chase sunsets and sunrises, um, you normally, I stay close to where, you know, my work is as long as I'm close to an airport and able to get out.
[00:02:20] Paul Flitcraft: You get to meet a lot of people, um. You know, and, and, you know, even with family, uh, my family have all got RVs and whenever we get somewhere as close to them or not even, I mean, we were in Foley, Alabama last year and you know, my sister and her husband came down and stayed a month and you get to talk about experiences and you, you truly never know who or what you're going to meet.
[00:02:42] Paul Flitcraft: I can tell you story after story of meeting people that know people that, you know, our paths somehow or another had crossed paths one way or another and it's, it's crazy. That's awesome. But when I get away from that, I got a cabin in, uh, the, the Southern Hills of Ohio. And, uh, there's not a lot of people around [00:03:00] there.
[00:03:00] Paul Flitcraft: So I enjoy going there and just getting away and hearing nothing.
[00:03:04] David Lee: So tell us a bit about your background, kind of how you got started in the industry and things, Paul. You know,
[00:03:09] Paul Flitcraft: when I was, uh, I just did an icebreaker the other day with, uh, the VP that I work under. And you know, the, the, the whole icebreaker was what gave you your passion.
[00:03:19] Paul Flitcraft: And when I was a kid, I had an uncle that, uh, loved building classic cars, race cars. And. If I wasn't working, uh, you know, on a farm or, you know, at home, uh, I was in his garage with him and, you know, I always like taking older things and watching them turn into something new or better. Uh, I have a 53 Chevy that I would match it up against anything that you put out on the market today.
[00:03:43] Paul Flitcraft: Looks a little older, but runs as good as a new one. Um, and that's kind of been my passion. You know, I joined the military to, to work on fighter jets, loved working on those, got out and started in, um, a manufacturing company making cabinets. And you know, I'm still [00:04:00] that way today. Um, I've been asked to, to move into more production roles.
[00:04:05] Paul Flitcraft: And I'm a maintainer. I'm a maintenance guy. I love watching equipment work. I love, you know, I, somebody told me once that a successful company is as only good as the maintenance department gives them in equipment, and I believe that, and I love being in that line of things to making things successful.
[00:04:24] Paul Flitcraft: Awesome.
[00:04:25] David Lee: Well, now that we know a little bit more about you and we're acquainted with you, it's time for our first segment. It's called the maintainer mashup. Where we'll deep dive into equipment. Management, and different ways to make your plant more reliable.
[00:04:42] Voiceover: Maintenance required. Listen, I maintain. I maintain the muscle.
[00:04:46] Voiceover: Maintain course. Maintain speed. I gotta maintain respect.
[00:04:53] David Lee: So Paul, can we hear a little bit about American Woodmark Corporation? Also [00:05:00] about your role in your day to day and for the audience, Just so you all know, American Woodmark is a market leader in cabinet manufacturing founded in 1980, and they produce over 10 million cabinets a year, and they have over 19 facilities across America.
[00:05:15] Paul Flitcraft: American Woodmark, you know, again, you've already said we make kitchen cabinets and how I like to go about things. Um, everything that we do in maintenance needs to be data driven. Um, I, I hate the word reactivity. Um, I like to be proactive. And it all comes from what are we doing and how are we doing it.
[00:05:37] Paul Flitcraft: Uh, my guys will tell you, uh, especially whenever I manage this at a plant level, you know, I'm very big on tech accountability. What they're doing. If they're working 40 hours, I want to capture 36, 37 hours of what they're doing that week. And the only way that, you know, I can actually make really good decisions is by what people are doing.
[00:05:56] Paul Flitcraft: One of the things that I learned when I was in the Navy, uh, working on aircraft. [00:06:00] Is if a warning, if you've seen a warning or a caution, a publication, it was warnings was written in somebody's life, a caution was written in somebody's blood. Um, and it's really resonated with me in everything that I do, because if we take it further than that, then we could actually see what a piece of equipment is actually doing, how often it's breaking.
[00:06:22] Paul Flitcraft: Our CMMS systems can be used for so many different things. I, again, be, you know, optimizing preventative maintenance tasks to, to saying, Hey, this is breaking every three months, let's, let's, instead of doing this quarterly or doing it monthly, let's move it out quarterly. It's good for saving time. It's good for keeping equipment running, but it's also good.
[00:06:43] Paul Flitcraft: You know, maintenance guys will tell you, you know, I can't stand the fact that I got to do this, this, and that. Um, I give you times when. I would get these emails and say, Hey, this same thing's breaking every, every day. And the CMMS system showed that it wasn't the same thing breaking every day on the same piece of [00:07:00] equipment.
[00:07:00] Paul Flitcraft: It was the same thing breaking. On a piece of like equipment, but it was chasing a operator around where the operator was actually sabotaging the machine to take, you know, an extra long break and it was following him and we were able to use the data to show that that's what was happening. Uh, the biggest part though is, is capturing things before they actually break.
[00:07:22] Paul Flitcraft: Or start having quality issues. You know, a lot of things we have today have HMIs and computer systems on them. Easy to hook sensor technology up into it. Easy to, to, to Be able to track things like linear board footage going out of a laminator and realizing that every 800, 000 linear board feet that goes through, you start having quality issues because the chrome on the rolls are starting to break down and the heat transfer is not quite there.
[00:07:48] Paul Flitcraft: And able to change those out before we start sending out a lot of bad product. So for me, Um, how to manage it is all data driven, um, how to, to get people [00:08:00] to, to see how important that data is to driving change, um, at a plant level is great. It's a little bit more difficult whenever you go at a corporate level when you have 19 facilities, because we got to remember that not one plant is identically the same.
[00:08:14] Paul Flitcraft: You know, equipment changes, um, people change, right? Um, culture, you know, the South isn't like the North and, you know, the East isn't like the West. So cultures are completely different whenever you're, you're working at that same level. So you got to use that or, or look at that. And find strengths, find weaknesses, and, and then build them together to build a more cohesive team.
[00:08:39] Jake Hall: So, you know, as a follow up question on that, I love how you talked about how every manufacturing facility is going to be different, every way we're driving culture and, you know, importance of maintenance is going to be handled differently, can you? Can you talk about more, I think that's a really, uh, a good topic to hit home on.
[00:08:57] Jake Hall: How do you establish a [00:09:00] culture, or I guess you could say a maintenance program across multiple facilities that have different people, different, you know, cultures and in terms of the way people want to work, um, the way they approach maintenance, can you dive more into that?
[00:09:15] Paul Flitcraft: You know, that's actually a great question because, uh, you know, You know, Jake, I'm not sure your background, was you military also?
[00:09:21] Paul Flitcraft: I was not military, no. Okay, so David will understand this when I say this, when you go to bootcamp, what's the first thing they take from you is your individuality away from you. Um, they make you learn to work with a team and, you know, believe it or not, you know, I, I've, I've actually got the opportunity to talk to my company commander that was my DI, so to speak, in bootcamp, uh, later on in life.
[00:09:44] Paul Flitcraft: And asked him, you know, Hey, how did you know? He was like, you know, when I got my company, he goes, I was able to read through everybody's as fabs, I was able to look for everybody came from and understand because I'd already been in the military for, you know, 12, 15 years. Uh, the cultural differences were [00:10:00] different and he goes, so whenever you got there, remember, you know, you had a bunkmate and then like halfway through it, you got changed up.
[00:10:07] Paul Flitcraft: And he goes, more than likely, he goes, I don't remember who your bunkmate was. He's like, probably somebody you didn't like. I'm like, I hated the guy. You know, didn't think nothing like me, but I had to learn to work with him to be successful. And, you know, it's, with me, um, I, I look at the same thing. I, I walk into an area and I'm real big on skills matrices, you know.
[00:10:29] Paul Flitcraft: I want every maintenance manager to tell me what the skill set of every one of their employees are. And you're going to see strengths, you're going to see weaknesses, you're going to see things that guys are good at, some things that they're mediocre at, and what I want to do is I want to take that, and like I tell the maintenance managers, This is a challenge to you, not for them that they're weak.
[00:10:50] Paul Flitcraft: It's a challenge to you to every year improve upon who they are and make them better. How are you tracking that skill matrices? So I have one that I [00:11:00] send out yearly that they have to update for me yearly for each one of their plants. And then I, I review it as I go into the plant and I like to talk to the guy too.
[00:11:07] Paul Flitcraft: I mean, I'm not, I hate the word corporate because I'm that guy that wants to go into a plant and I want to be a part of the team. Not, not, not the guy that comes in and tells you how bad you are and then walk away and not help you fix it. I want to tell you the good things you're doing. I want to talk about some of the things that we have gaps in and, and, and improve upon.
[00:11:25] Paul Flitcraft: Um, and it all comes from our people, right? Everything that we do. Um, and I, I hope other people realize it's these people that are working on the floor that make things happen. Uh, I hear a lot that it's not life or death, we're making cabinets or we're making this. Well, for people at that lower level, it can be life or death.
[00:11:46] Paul Flitcraft: It's how they support their families. It's how they put their kids through school. It's how they feed them. They clothe them and how they have, you know, the quality of life that they have and bettering them. Embedding our company and building that bent strength is what we need to focus [00:12:00] on.
[00:12:00] David Lee: Awesome. Yeah.
[00:12:01] David Lee: Very, very, very good. Uh, good stuff there. I appreciate that. Um, now you talked about the skill matrix and it would be more so focused on soft skills, but I'd like to transition here as we move into the next segment. Since we've heard about how AWC operates, let's talk about soft skills. More or less you and how you excel in this second segment.
[00:12:24] David Lee: What's in your toolkit?
[00:12:29] Jake Hall: We're going to fix it. Get the tool. Pick the one right tool. The right tool for the right job.
[00:12:38] Paul Flitcraft: So, so for me, again, um, there's, there's an old saying, if you're going to talk the talk, walk the walk, right? Um, still it's, it's old, but very, very effective. Um, I like using the things that I try to tell people what to do in my own personal life. So it transitions a lot easier into my work life. Um, [00:13:00] you know, I, I, I like talking to people about like, we're, we're talking about, you know, maintaining a piece of equipment, but how do we maintain our cars?
[00:13:08] Paul Flitcraft: Right. Um, I had the opportunity one time to go into a, a Porsche dealership or have service done on a Porsche. And you walked in there or you drove the car in there and just the value of order. Right. Everything had a place, you know, the five S was complete. The guys were dressed really nice. In your mind, what you thought was, this is going to be done right no matter what.
[00:13:32] Paul Flitcraft: But if you walk into a garage with guys got tools laying everywhere, there's cars all apart, parts here, parts there, there's no order in that, right? You kind of have this idea like, Ooh, is this the right place that I want to take things? So, in my maintenance departments, you know, I want people to see in the cars I drive that they're maintained, they're up to date, they're, they're where they need to be, I'm doing my preventative maintenance on a daily basis, I want people to see that inside the [00:14:00] shop, you know, I want to do.
[00:14:02] Paul Flitcraft: I tell people constant state of readiness. If you're just cleaning up because you've got a VIP coming in, that's not a constant state of readiness because you know what? You're going to miss something. Somebody is going to get hurt. Somebody is, is going to be moving in a way that's not what they're used to.
[00:14:18] Paul Flitcraft: If they're used to every day cleaning up, they're used to every day making sure parts are put away or completing a job or, or giving the detail on that work order of that job. It's everything to me. So I have to live that too. If I'm going to talk it, I've got to walk it. So when I'm in a plant and I have a conversation with somebody, there has to be that follow up and getting back to them.
[00:14:39] Paul Flitcraft: They have to see that not only am I talking about it, but that's how I live my personal life. And if I tell you that, you know, Hey, I'm always here. If you need me, I have to always be there and need me again. My individuality is gone. It's the team and what the team is doing to, to
[00:14:54] Jake Hall: improve itself. And, you know, to add on to that improving, you guys have a [00:15:00] training program that is within your, within your organization that isn't just focused on training of the facility, but it's really focused on career development as a whole, you know, and improving the skill sets and the knowledge, and I guess you could say, I don't wanna say the work ethic, but the, the mentality of continuous learning, um, you know, can you talk more about how do you.
[00:15:23] Jake Hall: Build out and grow and establish a mindset where you talked about, right? Where, where if people are taking care of their maintaining their cars, that mentality follows through on the business and the work side as well. How do you, how do you build that for our audience?
[00:15:39] Paul Flitcraft: You know, uh, it's part of life, right?
[00:15:42] Paul Flitcraft: It's, it's something that you have to establish internally in yourself, but have to set that expectation. And, you know, we all hear about smart goals, right? Like, but. Make it, make it attainable for everybody. Make it so that they can live it also. And you're hoping, because I [00:16:00] mean, we all know that we've got a lot of maintainers out there that, you know, are old school that, you know, they, they had that old backyard, you know, garage style mentality.
[00:16:11] Paul Flitcraft: Well, in today's world, you know, what are we doing? We're automating everything, right? We're, we're making improvements, making it more computer. I mean, when I first got out of the Navy, there was a lot of relay logic out there. You know, you'd walk by a piece of equipment. You could hear those relays in there moving around.
[00:16:28] Paul Flitcraft: And now it's a signal from a CPU telling something to go, you know, you've got, you know, things that are servo driven, but we still have a lot of those older guys. And changing, and let's go back to that cultural piece, right? Changing that culture that we take these older guys and them strengthen weaknesses from that skills matrix, take those older guys and have them teach this younger generation, some of those skillsets that are still there from the past and those older guys that have been around a while learning some of those skillsets from the [00:17:00] beginning, make people a cohesive team.
[00:17:02] Paul Flitcraft: Again, It's not about who's better than one another because you're only as strong as that weakest link, right? So you have to build where everybody is that cohesive team pulling together in that same direction.
[00:17:15] David Lee: Yeah, that was a, that was a really good answer. As a matter of fact, uh, you've touched on a few things here, uh, about how to Pretty much apply leadership and management styles, right?
[00:17:26] David Lee: To different cultures, different people all across the country. Um, but we didn't explicitly talk about a few things. Number one, it sounds like you're leading from the front, right? But you're also leading in a very selfless way in a way that kind of seems like. You train the people behind you to be able to replace you.
[00:17:43] David Lee: So I'd like to kind of harp on that and focus on that portion of the conversation a little bit. Tell me about how your leadership skills, your management techniques, how they directly correlate, and if you have any stories specifically that you could tell us about. Uh, that's what I'd love to hear from you today because I know, [00:18:00] uh, Paul, you have a lot.
[00:18:03] Paul Flitcraft: You know, uh, I, I remember when I was in the Navy, um, I, I was an E4 and I moved to a, a new squadron and they were making me the LPO as an E4. I was going to get advanced. Um, but I, I had a, a chief that, you know, seen that I had promise and, you know, he put me in positions to make decisions. And one of the things he told me, um, and, and it still sticks so true to me today, the more, you know, the less I have to do.
[00:18:35] Paul Flitcraft: And the more, you know, the more other people are going to know, because it's just not me standing on that, that box and talking. There's a group of us that are together standing on that box, talking about the same thing. And, you know, I'm a firm believer in that. If I know something, I want everybody's job to be easier.
[00:18:53] Paul Flitcraft: I want everybody's job to be, you know. Post billing as mine is, um, I have [00:19:00] nothing to prove to anybody when it comes to the trajectory of, of where I've taken in my life. It's a lot of hard work, a lot of heartaches, a lot of sleepless nights. But the satisfaction of walking, watching other people grow and using the knowledge that you have is, is everything.
[00:19:17] Paul Flitcraft: Um, I've got a young gentleman that I've mentored for years, um, who has now taken his first step of, of being a supervisor manager. And you know, he made a comment to actually took him on a trip with me a couple of weeks ago and he's like, you know, I'd follow you blindly because you've never lied to me.
[00:19:33] Paul Flitcraft: You've always been honest. He goes. But what has stuck out to me most importantly is the fact that you've always taught me things. I never could understand why you were putting me in positions to either fail or succeed, but I know now why you did that. You did that because you needed me to make mistakes and learn from them on my own.
[00:19:54] Paul Flitcraft: Because if you told me how to do it, it would never stick with me like I had to [00:20:00] fail or how I had to succeed to get there and get done. And I've found better ways. Of doing things because you let me make mistakes. You let me learn on my own and was just there in the background coaching me on. So that's one of the most successful things you have.
[00:20:16] Paul Flitcraft: I mean, I honestly believe the true measure and I hate saying boss or manager, but a leader is what he leaves behind, the example he sets and what is built from behind him that could step in. And take that position at any given time, if something happened to me or I decided to move on. So
[00:20:35] Jake Hall: Paul, to add on kind of to that conversation around success, um, you talked about earlier story of a former professor.
[00:20:43] Jake Hall: And how there was a discussion that you want to be able to be successful unless you had certain degrees, certain paperwork, certain certificates, you know, the, the, the status quo of what makes success at that time. Can you talk more [00:21:00] about how you, you rose as a leader and your experience within the industry when being told that you wouldn't be able to do that?
[00:21:10] Paul Flitcraft: Yeah. Um, when I first got out of the Navy, I went to school and, uh, I was able to turn a lot of my documentation from the military into the ROTC branch, and they were transitioning some of the things that I'd done in the Navy that they would give me credit for. And I had so many things that I needed to do, and I took this class, and, um, according to the paperwork, it's, he was teaching it right, but practical use, uh, which is something that I had done for, you know, seven, eight years already, was not quite there.
[00:21:38] Paul Flitcraft: And I was trying to explain that to him. And, uh, he didn't like it. And of course, you know, I'm a proud person and I was young and cocky at the time also. And him and I get into an all out verbal confrontation, uh, about teaching people the right way of doing things and using a practical way of doing it.
[00:21:55] Paul Flitcraft: And he told me to leave his class. And, uh, I said, gladly. And as I was walking [00:22:00] out, he told me that I would never amount to anything if I didn't have my actual degree. And I looked at him and I said, well, I'll probably never see you again, but I'll show you different. Well, um, I moved on, uh, was a manager already at the time, uh, moved up into a corporate role and I was actually in a facility that was close to my hometown and they were going to be interviewing some, uh, uh, a plant engineer.
[00:22:28] Paul Flitcraft: And I was like, I want to be on this when I know this guy. And I met him at the door and I remember him looking at me and I said, I'm here to interview you today. And he was like, well, I guess this interview isn't going to go very good. And I'm like, no, I said, I actually want to learn from you. I want to learn why, what you've learned since then and why you're now applying for a job to do this.
[00:22:48] Paul Flitcraft: And I want to take that and put that in my toolbox. I want to take that and understand why you and I couldn't get along to better myself, but I also want to tell you, you were wrong, you know, this is where I'm at and I'm here to [00:23:00] interview you, not you to interview me or tell me what I cannot do without that degree.
[00:23:05] Paul Flitcraft: What a story.
[00:23:07] Jake Hall: It was pretty interesting. Oh, man. Well, I did that, that, that, that really, when we're talking about how that future and how that, that changed your future, this is a great way to segment into the next, which is the future of factories. Meet the future. To our futures. What future? The factory. My factory.
[00:23:24] Jake Hall: Everybody's factory.
[00:23:25] David Lee: I love your factory.
[00:23:30] Jake Hall: And so this is our third segment where we cover what new trends have you seen happen across the industry and really what we should be looking forward to with the things ahead. So could you talk about great innovations, um, you're seeing now when it comes to modernizing the workplace? I know, right, everyone's got cabinets in their kitchen, right?
[00:23:51] Jake Hall: Either there's, there's manufacturing, but like what, what's changing in the industry that's growing. Industries and organizations are moving them forward. [00:24:00] So
[00:24:00] Paul Flitcraft: we go back to automotive. I mean, they've, they've automated a lot of things on automotive lines, right? And, you know, in cabinets, you know, we have a lot of process lines where, you know, you, you cut, you know, sidewalls, backs, whatever it is, but there's a lot that has to be done with that.
[00:24:19] Paul Flitcraft: You know, you have to take a square piece of wood. Cut a toe kick in it, you know, you have to drill the holes that are going to be made for the actual, um, shelving that's going to go in it, the grooves where you tie it all together, you know, there's a lot of material handling that goes along with that for one person taking it and putting it on a line.
[00:24:38] Paul Flitcraft: To now let's talk about automating. Let's take a stack of this where it's actually picking it up, setting it on a line, cone turners in there that are turning it as it goes down this long process line to at the backside, being able to stack it. And moving on where, you know, it used to take 10 people to do it.
[00:24:55] Paul Flitcraft: We can now do it with three. So automation is, is huge in everything that we're [00:25:00] doing. I'm sure you guys hear about this and everybody out there is, you know, let's automate, automate, automate. But we got to go back to what is our bench strength again? What does our skills matrix say that we have? Do we have the capability of adding all this automation and being able to maintain it?
[00:25:16] Paul Flitcraft: At the same time with the skills that we have. Again, that skills matrix is there for me to see how many people that we have that have those. MI Abilities that have those CPU abilities, being able to trouble through, troubleshoot through the complex problems that comes with automation, right? I mean, let's face it.
[00:25:35] Paul Flitcraft: I mean, back in the day, I wasn't very techie at all. I mean, I was struggling today hooking up a set of headsets, right? Because it's not something that I do every day. So these guys are going to do the same. And we have a lot of guys that have been around a long time, you know that if you threw something in there with relay logic, they'd be able to, bam, I got this.
[00:25:54] Paul Flitcraft: Now you're asking them to do this, and we have, you know, that workforce that's coming in [00:26:00] that You know, even though they've gone to school and they've got all this, this knowledge, they haven't had that practical use where they've used their hands and they haven't had that practical use where they're dealing with other people and with other things that come involved with that.
[00:26:15] David Lee: Awesome. Yeah. Very, very good words there. So now, uh, one thing I'd like to bring up because you've been talking about like the skill matrix and the people and that aspect of things, but, I would like to kind of change the, the direction a little bit to, let's talk about the actual hurdles and obstacles.
[00:26:32] David Lee: Right? Uh, so I want to look at things from a, whether it be a company perspective or industry perspective, or even a national perspective, what challenges are you seeing coming down the pipeline that we really need to address? Because in my opinion, there are some very critical ones, but I would love to hear your perspective.
[00:26:50] David Lee: As a maintainer, as a corporate guy, and also as a veteran.
[00:26:53] Paul Flitcraft: So again, you go back to the military. What did we do? Um, the data was used to say, Hey, we got to do something every 24 [00:27:00] hours, every 36 hours, every time this plane takes off, so many traps, so many recoveries. Um, there was a lot of information that came out of failures, right?
[00:27:10] Paul Flitcraft: But now with technology, we've grown. There's a lot of things out there that we can detect failures. Even before our data, I mean, vibration analysis, oil analysis, you know, um, ultrasonics, uh, infrared heat guns, picking up heat signatures that shouldn't be there. We're all guilty from every industry that I've ever been a part of not using the technologies out that are out there to improve upon us.
[00:27:36] Paul Flitcraft: I mean, being able to set up a dashboard. And watch vibration as it's moving or how it's, it's increasing or decreasing because of the maintenance that we're doing. Being able to set things up in time based, uh, working on a HMI system now that is actually saying every so many hours, this is what needs to be done for [00:28:00] this piece of equipment.
[00:28:01] Paul Flitcraft: Being able to capture that from the, the, the tools that we have out there available to us today. That wasn't available 20 years ago, or if it was, it was so expensive that, you know, you couldn't get people to, to, to buy it. Again, going back to our data that's, that's coming out of our work order system, we can actually prove that we need these things.
[00:28:23] Paul Flitcraft: Um, I'll use a story just happened here recently. You know, we have these big dust collection systems. We had a motor failure that happened two times in one year. You know, this is a 350 horsepower motor. If we would have captured that the vibrations were going up, we would have been able to say, Hey, we can change this on the weekend before it actually broke.
[00:28:43] Paul Flitcraft: Set us down for three days without dust collection, you know, we can't make cabinets. We can go one step further with that also. Capturing that vibration, it should have never happened two times in a row in less than a year. Come to find out when it was installed, it was [00:29:00] installed with a lower grade wiring that should have been there, but again, we could have captured that the harmonics were wrong and been able to fix that before it actually broke.
[00:29:10] Paul Flitcraft: And been able to, to, okay, now we're two years into this where a vendor doesn't want to come back and fix something because, well, it's been two years. Prove that it was us in the first place.
[00:29:19] Jake Hall: No, what a, what a great highlight there. When you talk about how it doesn't protect just downtime, but it really protects a lot of assets of if you would have monitored earlier on, it could have prevented not just downtime down the road, but a lot of initial costs upfront as well, when you put in.
[00:29:38] Jake Hall: That type of a maintenance program. Now, after, after you saw that story, were there people who were maybe on the edge of not wanting to do that type of investment that after they saw that, they're like, okay, I get it now. I understand why it, why it's crucial to do monitoring and maintenance on devices like this.
[00:29:57] Paul Flitcraft: Well, I mean, it's a, it's a corporate push for me [00:30:00] now to actually get more of this. David, that's how you and I met, right? Um, looking at adding these things to our facilities because there's such a need for it and you know, because, and David will tell you, there's so much information pointing to the need of this, that our corporation has said, Hey, you know, Next year, we have to have all our critical A on vibration analysis and being able to watch what it's actually doing for critical A equipment, critical A equipment in our company.
[00:30:30] Paul Flitcraft: Is the one offset, if it shuts down, it shuts the whole plant down and people can't work and we can't get cabinets out the door.
[00:30:38] Jake Hall: And I think that the highlight with that as well, for, for people who have never replaced or seen the cost of rebuilding an electric motor, especially from some of the sizes that you're talking about, this isn't a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollar expense I've seen electric motor rebuilds that have been upwards of 10, 000, 15, 000, [00:31:00] 20, 000, depending on the size and the horsepower size motor and how much, you know, depending on the type of maintenance that has to be done on it.
[00:31:08] Paul Flitcraft: That's 28, 000 to get that motor there next day. Then not only that, you have to pay riggers to come in and actually balance that to a blower motor. And, you know, now we find out that we got bad wiring, so, you know, there's another 35, 000 to, to change out the wiring. Um, so yeah, the, the cost and, and now let's talk about the most important part.
[00:31:27] Paul Flitcraft: Right. That cust that customer relationship, you know, on time delivery. Are we going to get what we're supposed to get to our customers in time because we're not capable of running for two or three days?
[00:31:40] David Lee: Which is the point of everything we do, right? So quick question for you on this, um, because I, you said a lot of really great things about utilizing data and technology, uh, essentially to, to do what we're all wanting to do, get, get items to customers as they need it.
[00:31:59] David Lee: One thing that I [00:32:00] see happens is. You'll have failures and then you'll have a reoccurring failure, but then there's some sort of disconnect between some of the decision makers and those like yourself who understand why it's failing and understand the technology that's needed to fix that. Have you seen challenges at that place where it's, there's a empirical need, but does it necessarily translate to everyone in the organization who needs to decide to move forward on this?
[00:32:26] David Lee: How do you get over those obstacles and have you seen those as obstacles much in your career?
[00:32:31] Paul Flitcraft: So with maintenance, and I'll tell everybody out there that they need to do more of this is get with your operational excellence people inside your building. They have a lot of great tools that they can use.
[00:32:41] Paul Flitcraft: Um, and they can help you out getting your point across, not just to your maintenance and engineering side, but those operational excellence stuff with the production side of things. Um, I'm actually really happy in, uh, the, the company that I work for. Um, I'm on a team where, you know, [00:33:00] we're basically manufacturing services, but operational excellence and maintenance excellence are side by side.
[00:33:05] Paul Flitcraft: And we do a lot of events together like TPMs, uh, PM optimizations. We use a lot of the tools that they use in maintenance. But the biggest gain is to it is getting your same message to that other side. I mean, there's always been this big wall between maintenance and production, right? It's us against them mentality.
[00:33:26] Paul Flitcraft: And breaking that down is really a truthfully part of building that team, right? Getting rid of those walls and saying that we're together. Uh, we just did a TPM event not too long ago where the production manager was involved with it. And coming out of that TPM event, one of the biggest things he said, he goes, I never understood what you guys are really trying to do until I was involved in this and he goes, you have not only my respect, but you also have my support on these other pieces of equipment, getting that information to that production side of things, using their reporting system.
[00:33:59] Paul Flitcraft: You know, it's, [00:34:00] it's kind of a sneaky way of getting in, but I'm telling you what, it's effective and it builds this team. When they start seeing maintenance and operational excellence working together, it really pushes, you got now two against one, right? And then instead of one against two, you're, you're, you're building that up.
[00:34:15] Paul Flitcraft: And one way or another, you will draw them in and they'll see the value of what you're trying to do.
[00:34:21] David Lee: Awesome. Yeah. Thanks for the explanation. I'm sure that'd be helpful as there are a lot of challenges in different organizations getting what they need and it takes translating that value. So, uh, great words there.
[00:34:31] David Lee: Super appreciate that. Now before we say goodbye to Paul, let's jump into our final segment. The fix it funnies
[00:34:40] Paul Flitcraft: is in. He's making
[00:34:42] Jake Hall: a really, make it funny, would be great. Your fate is fixed.
[00:34:51] David Lee: At the start of the episode, Jake asked you, where would you escape for some fun or much needed vacation? So now I'd [00:35:00] like to ask you about. Maybe some work hacks that you use, right? Like whether it's specific end souls, or if you have a specific program you use, or maybe you, you always keep a cliff bar, a power bar or Snickers in your back pocket for those times where you get a little bit grumpy, what type work hacks do you have that you would like to impart on the next generations and those listening today?
[00:35:21] Paul Flitcraft: Anybody that knows me knows me that if, if I'm in a bad mood, give me some Mike and Ikes in the green bag. Um, they always make me smile. They take me back to when I was a kid again, cause they were my favorite candy. So, uh, everybody sees that, you know, you're acting like a diva, give you a Snickers bar.
[00:35:38] Paul Flitcraft: Everybody knows when I've got my diva on, they're going to give me some Mike and Ikes. And it's funny cause some of these plants that I go to, I'll walk in and I'll see behind the maintenance manager's desk, or I'll see in like The, the planner's office, they'll have a bag of Mike and Ikes. They're like, I'm ready for you.
[00:35:55] Jake Hall: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, you have, you have the [00:36:00] opportunity to travel wherever you want to with, with having that RV. If you weren't in this industry of manufacturing and maintenance, what, what industry would you want to be doing? What would you want to be doing with your career right now?
[00:36:13] Paul Flitcraft: I'd still want to travel.
[00:36:14] Paul Flitcraft: Um, but I would probably back working on aircraft. Um, I'll be honest, the best time of my life was in the Navy. I think that's really, I mean, when I was a kid, you know, my dad told me, he's like, you know, either you can see the world or you can see here. And I would challenge you to go see the world a little bit because that's what he did.
[00:36:32] Paul Flitcraft: And I don't think I've ever stopped being fascinated with different areas and different cultures, right? I've learned, I've learned so much about so many different cultures. Um, and I have a passion, maybe I'd be a missionary, I don't know. Um, I would love to go into different parts of the world and help people.
[00:36:51] Paul Flitcraft: I love teaching people what I know or giving them the opportunity of learning what I know. So I would probably be doing something like that. Um, [00:37:00] I don't want to be known, uh, for not being somebody that, that cared or helped. Uh, one of our, our core values is care and candor in this company. And I'm heavy on that care part.
[00:37:11] Paul Flitcraft: Um, Can be very candid also. Uh, but I really care. I love to see people be successful. I, I look forward to, uh, I'm in the Anaheim facility today. We have a young maintenance manager here and just had a conversation with him half an hour before this, and I can't wait to see the great things this young man's going to do, the things that he's going to build.
[00:37:32] Paul Flitcraft: And where his trajectory is going to be in his life. It's all about what he wants to do and what he's willing to work on. I would still definitely be, uh, trying to teach people.
[00:37:42] David Lee: Love it. Yeah. You sound like a wonderful mentor. I really appreciate you seeing that you're out there fighting that good fight and really bringing this much value to the industry and all the people around you, transitioning a little bit.
[00:37:53] David Lee: What about content that you may be enjoying right now? Is there any specific type of content, whether it be on Netflix [00:38:00] or Spotify, anything specifically that you'd like to talk about or recommend maybe to some of your mentees or something that's just more or less enjoyable, uh, at this point?
[00:38:10] Paul Flitcraft: Well, I'm, uh, I'm sure everybody's watched Band of Brothers, the Pacific, uh, just got done watching Masters of the Air.
[00:38:17] Paul Flitcraft: Again, all about the, the B 17 bombers in World War II. So, great show. Um, you know, you, you learn, I, I, again, I think sometimes our history doesn't like knowing what really happened, but hearing these stories from these people, I mean, that's what Band of Brothers was all about, you know, uh. Major Dick Winters, you know, and his story, um, then you, you look at the Pacific with John Bastogne and his, you know, he had the opportunity not to go back, but it was all about his team and going back, right?
[00:38:46] Paul Flitcraft: And then Masters of the Air, same thing, um, all about that team mentality and how important your brothers mean to you. You know, military doesn't matter, we're, you know, we could be on different branches and we give each [00:39:00] other a hard time, but you know, it's, we'll protect one another at any given moment because that's the, the, the, the things that we learned is that camaraderie, that, that honor, that commitment to one another.
[00:39:11] Paul Flitcraft: And then the other show I'm watching right now is Shogun. Uh, it was a great book, but it also talks about that samurai history and how important it was in futile Japan, uh, moving forward to Western civilization.
[00:39:25] Jake Hall: One final question for you. If you can operate any piece of equipment or work on any piece of machinery that's out there, what would it be?
[00:39:34] Paul Flitcraft: Does it have to be, uh, something in industry or could I tell you, I'd love to, I'd love to work on an F 18 again, and I'd love to strap myself in it and fly it. Here you go.
[00:39:44] David Lee: Awesome. Yeah. You know, to the audience, if you're going to buy cabinets, why not buy them from. The people who have the guys who used to maintain jets, maintaining their machines.
[00:39:54] David Lee: So that's a, that's a super awesome. Obviously I come from the same background in aviation, so I have an [00:40:00] affinity as well. And. Again, Paul, thank you so much for coming to the show. Uh, it was great to have you also thank you for your service and to everyone else in the audience, this has been The Maintainers, a Bluecap community podcast.
[00:40:14] David Lee: Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcast content from as we're on most major platforms so you can be notified the next time we have an episode going live.
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[00:40:38] Voiceover: Their AI powered condition monitoring and asset management solution predicts machine failures and eliminates unplanned downtime, generating an average of 38 percent more productivity for clients worldwide. It's artificial intelligence quarterbacking your [00:41:00] maintenance.