The Future of Stone Fabrication: AI, Robotics & Smart Shops

[Music] Hey Stone Industry, it is the Stone Clatter Chatter Guys here again. There it goes. It fits us, right? To not be able to know our own name. You know, sometimes most of the time that's how I feel. Today, and this is just the introduction to our upcoming panel of really smart guides, right? So you'll see kind of the contrast between the three of us and them. We've got Mag and Vice President of Sales from Park. This is a machine heavy conversation, really interesting. We've got Nick, owner of Total Stone, and then we've got Alex Boris, long time industry guy, most recently was working with CMS, and has a good feel for kind of the Italian technology and where they're going. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation where we're going to talk about new technologies coming out within the machine world, kind of their philosophy around AI and data exchange. And I saw some teases of it at TICE, and so we're going to probe into that a little bit more with those guys. Also, talk about, you know, almost kind of the age-old industry question of, you know, chicken or the egg. Where do I start, right? If I finally, if I'm at $2 million shop and I am in on technology and automation and digital, where do I start, where do I buy first, where do I go? We have a really cool, you know, kind of set a questions teed up for that. Guys, did I miss anything? Yeah, we get into, we get into, we talk about trade shows, what's coming up. And trade shows? Yeah, we get into the factor of, well, we talk about the payback on buy machinery. There's some interesting conversations around some industry benchmarks, I think are pretty cool. So, so if you're brand new and you haven't gone digital yet, super interesting show, right? If you've got nine CNCs and six five-axis saws, still really interesting, because we're kind of talking about the future a little bit too. And, you know, so I think we're covering all segments here. So we're ready to get this thing rolling. Kick it off, baby. I like a plan. Alrighty, here comes a stone chatter second episode focused on machinery. Hey folks, really appreciate you joining us today. Glad to have you on the podcast today. Looking forward to a really great session. We've got some really good folks with us. But before we have them introduce themselves, Eric, I think you've got some information you want to share with us. I want to introduce them for us, right? So, yeah, Titans of the industry, right? We're excited. We've got Megan, we've got Nick, we've got Alex and I, I jabbed on each of these Titans of industry about some things that no one would know about them. And we've kind of started that off. So this is going to be the trend, right? So a couple really fun facts, but to set it up with a question out of the three folks that are on this call. This one's kind of a, you know, put it in the comments, right? Your guests, but out of these three, which one of them has given birth to a daughter and they take that daughter on road trip. So you've got Megan, you've got Nick, you've got Alex. So you just let us know in the comments, right? You're, you're, you're picked. So Megan's was kind of interesting. And hers was with her parents and man, your parents are great. It sounds like Megan. International trip with her parents every year. Is that accurate? I do. Yeah. We are planning our fifth one coming up. So it's fun. Amazing. I love that. My parents is similar to an international trip. They would take us in their 78 could pre-classic would panel the wagon and it would break down exactly an hour outside of Salt Lake City. And we would stay at the rest stop the entire weekend while they tried to figure out how to get it started. Very. That's how I grew up to it took me. It took me, you know, 37 years to get my dad to consider going abroad and now he loves it. So. That's awesome. I love that. Yeah. Very cool. From Nick's side of it, Nick is an adrenaline junkie. Everything from Harley's to snowmobiles. If it adds an engine and it goes fast, Nick's going to make it go faster. The cool thing and I want to get a little blurb on this Nick, you're learning to fly currently. So tell me about that pilot lessons. What does that look like? And are you afraid of crashing? I just feel that happens a lot with these smaller planes. Yeah, you know, I just like to go fast and I'm always on the move and you know, traveling as much as I travel sometimes. I think it just makes sense to learn how to fly and get myself around quicker. And, you know, I love the speed and the adrenaline anyway. So yeah, it's going to be a great fun new hobby for me. How long are lessons? I mean, is it a year or two years, five years? Yeah, so you've got to go through, you've got to go through your groundwork and then you've got a certain number of hours that you got to do up with a trainer. And then you get some independent flying where you've got to put in some more independent flying or just basically doing laps around an airport. And so yeah, I'm hoping in the next year or two, I've got a plane and can, you know, go where I want. That's awesome. Love that. And then Alex is I was laughing at because I know Alex pretty well. And this was kind of the interesting Alex, you just obsess over details, right? And then you get the details are involving like a solution, but I love the fact that you said you spend all this time, you get it all. You're just completely obsessed with it. And then you come up with the solution and you realize no one will ever ask you for that solution. And that's hilarious to me. You know, it's it's honestly it's helping anybody with a project. I'm currently finishing my office wall and it sat here for four months over the details that nobody will ever notice. So it's it's ongoing. It's a struggle. Talk with Megan because she's got a ship lap or the baton project. Ford and baton project. Yeah, so that's awesome. Cool. Well, that's my time. And sorry for taking it over and using the same style of the joke, but yeah, consistency. I gotta say, I'm gonna have to not look at your camera because when you talk, you are spinning back and forth all the time. I think I need to nail you down. I'm gonna work on that. My one thing for this one, if you guys have turned into previous, I always look away because I get like nervous. I don't know what it is, but yeah, I'm gonna keep looking straight. But now I'm spinning. So I'll work on it. All right, so we've had a little bit of fun, but what we like to do is have each of the three of you go ahead and introduce yourselves and just tell us and I'll call on you one of the time to make it a little easier. But just give us your name, what company you work for and what your role is in that company. If you would please just saw our listeners kind of know who's on the call here. Megan, would you start us off? I'm sorry, I'm sorry to jump in everybody, but that's what I do. I'm the jumper winner. And also, if you have any, you know, if you have any personal passion projects that you're working on or anything, you know, that's important to you also throw that into. I'd be interested in that. Yeah. Megan? Oh, yep. Megan, I'm the vice president of sales and marketing with park industries. And then I'm also a founding member of women who rock, which is kind of a grass fruits networking group that we have in the stone industry started that with a couple other really great women. And we plan immersion trips every year. So our goal is to get more women out experiencing the industry. How does women rock, compared to trash with women in stone? You know, it's, again, we're more grass fruits and our our big focus is immersion experiences. So like we're planning trips to this last year. We brought a group of women and one guy to Italy and we toured a number of material manufacturers. And then we all went to the trade show together. So our big focus is like creating experiences where one you get to learn from each other well your experiencing something in the industry. You already have some camaraderie and something in common. We've gotten a lot of feedback from women that there are things that, you know, hey, I would have loved to go on that international trip, but I was going to be the only woman going. So we're like, well, hey, we can solve that. Let's rally a number of others. We went to go centino the year before and into rich Spain. And then this year we've got something really fun planned. And we're going to head south. So yeah, so like women in stone, they're an absolutely incredible group parks, a proud sponsor of them. And they put together a lot of really great experiences. They have a phenomenal mentor program. And so they're just a broader community. We're a very grassroots. Yeah, well, I'm I'm I'm in women in stone. I'm entering two different mentees this time. Yeah, phenomenal group. Big fan of that. That's easy to find through the natural stone institute. But real quick, how do folks find women who rock? Yeah, we're online. I'm so you could find us on Facebook on Instagram, women who rock in surfaces. And then we make ourselves available at the different trade shows. So the next one. coming up will be covering and you can find women who are out there. All right. Awesome. Thanks. Very cool. Nick. Give yourself. Please sir. Yes. My name is Nick Wadden sir. I'm the owner of Total Stone Solutions. I am a 25 years plus in the business now. I've always sold machinery. So I used to own Marlomacanica back in the day. It was the vice president of Bacca Systems. And about five years ago, I decided it was time for me to go out on my own. Some new things I wanted to do and create here in North America. And so that's what I've set myself up to do. I am passionate about the stone industry. I we started a surfex, which is a trade show. I originally CISA, Stone Equipment Supply and Alliance to try and make sure that we could manage trade shows better, put them in better locations, have more accessible to our fabricators, and ultimately put on a better trade show. And that's what we've been setting out to do. So yeah, that's that's me in a nutshell. Great. We'll we'll touch on trade shows a little bit in a few minutes. Alex, I'm going to do yourself, please sir. I'm Alex Boris. But in the industry, probably just as long as Nick, I think I have a couple of years on it. I started the stone industry when I was 15. I've done a little bit of everything from being a fabricator in my family shop to selling machinery. I have my own tooling business now previously with CMS from Bonnum, CMS North America. And so just open to advising role or undecided of what I'm moving forward with. But like Nick, I am passionate about the industry. And anyway, I can help anybody really sets it apart for me. Awesome. Well, thank you folks. Again, appreciate y'all being with us today. One of the things we really want to do in this in this podcast is provide good information for shop owners. And I'm thinking in terms of equipment, if I'm a shop owner and I'm getting ready to to replace some equipment, I've got a saw or a router or something that's just really starting to age out. It's starting to give me some trouble. I'm going to buy something new. What's happened recently in terms of new types of technology that I want to be aware of as I make a machine selection. And do I make a decision to buy today or is it worth waiting maybe six months to a year because you may be without giving way any company secrets. You kind of see some things coming down the pike that a shop owner might want to be aware of. Maybe he wants to hear she wants to delay that decision a little bit. Any any thoughts or comments on that guys? Right. I'll go. I mean, if they're coming down the pipeline and I mean, they're moving from a blue ripper or manual saw, all of us companies offer an entry level five access machine, whether you're going to fit it with the side spend or utilize it on the machine motor. I mean, I think a saw is your first beginning. And you know, the biggest thing I see right now is companies evolving in the technology that they're using. It's not just the alpha cam. They're having more programs to make fabrication easier for you. And I think that would be my first step. So that's that's the scenario where you got a small shop is going to start start their automation journey. You're saying the five access all right. A little bit different question with ask, but let's go ahead and pursue that one. Let's see how that looks. What do you mean? I think you had a comment. I was just going to add it. I think if you're looking to make an investment overall, you should never wait for. I think inevitable technology. I think technology is going to continue to evolve always. Every investment you make should be based on where you're either having pain today, right? You're losing money, you're wasting time. I mean, that's what your priority should be when you're making an investment. But I do think technology and what I think the trends have been, you look back at, Marble Mac, you look back at ties. It's more about smart capabilities on technology that exists today. So how do you better enhance a saw that's out there or a router that's out there? So I don't think anyone's going to miss the mark if they look to make an investment today versus six months from now. So as you talk about looking at, you're kind of hitting towards towards features and capability. What are some things specifically a shop owner should look for if they're going to buy a piece of equipment like that? I guess say more. I mean, I think at the end of the day, you have to understand. What the challenges are of your business and what the goals are and then research the technology that exists today and. And again, find that right investment for your business needs. There's a variety out there, right? You can go with a release simplistic saw router or you could get more advanced with equipment that has AI capabilities or smart vision systems. I think the spectrum exists out there. And like Alex said, it really depends on the size of your business and. And what that investment looks like for you based on your needs. Alex, I saw you at I'm sorry, Nick, I saw you at ties, give a really cool presentation about about CMS and how they're leveraging data just to Megan's point, right? It's not necessarily physically a new machine, but it's now extracting data and using that. And I remember you saying to a lot of what you were doing was backwards compatible, right? So add kind of to your question, if you were to buy a machine today that doesn't lock you out, right? If most of the innovation coming is kind of data movement and software based, that doesn't lock you out from six months to a year. Because the machine people are are building things that are backwards compatible. Is that Alex did I hear you write it? Ties. Yeah. With CMS, I mean, that's that's a whole point like with AI algorithms, you're able to track every feature of your machine. And so that's a true predictive maintenance that they've created. So you know, whether it's spindle, wobble, whether it's a water union going down and then everything is right, right from that, that system itself, whether you're programming in the office, you could still set tickets, but it comes up to where that AI is just going to say, hey, look, you've you've you've you've you've you've ignored this for 12 weeks now. Let's I've already ordered the part, you know, a credit card's on file per say. So, you know, that way it's it's helping you along the way and keeping you running. I notice, you know, in the industry, it's it's it's all about service and we all try to offer a great service to everybody. And I think I think that's a true predictive maintenance option. But the AI algorithm being collected is is not your data. You know, or your data being collected is not like what jobs you're cutting or what your profit is. It's just from the machine. That's it. And that allows all the machines to connecting and contact each other. And then that way that helps your flow around the shop. Nick, you want to wait in? Um, yeah, I mean, you know, certainly the hardware component of it is becoming more commoditized. And so the software component of running the business is, you know, critically important from the start of the project to when you're working with your CRM to create the quote to manage the inventory to then nest the job properly and then move it and move it down to your saw and the fabrication and where it goes beyond, you know, depending on what type of equipment that you're running post saw. Um, you know, I think that overall global software running from the front to the back end of the business is really a future mode that needs to be addressed more and more inside of this industry that's not being approached. Right. Yeah. I think you hear a lot about automation, right? And people think of the physical. The physical connection between the processes, right? I'm going to be able to move this material all the way through the end. Um, and eliminate labor, but I think Nick, what you're talking about is more of that connection like the software automation, right? The connection between machines, I think that's going to be the future trend of the industry. How do we make the machine smarter and more connected? So that way you can get that over arcing understanding of your business and how it's performing. That's cool. And that that absolutely made you just confirmed my hypothesis, right? Because I'm doing this little thing called thrive, which is a data intensive business. And what we've seen is the ERP guys this year have opened everything up. I can get more aware data and stone app data and and it's great, but that only gets you so much improvement, right? And so my hope in our hope is that, you know, whether you call beginning of 27 or whenever that happens, the machine folks, you all start kind of jumping on board with that. Also, and really making the data available. So now we can really optimize shops because that's where a lot of the costs come from. So I'm excited what you just said got me really excited. So that's really cool. - Name, I think Alex, that's what you were talking about too. I mean, I think the role that AI is going to play is less about replacing people and how to make the data more informed, accessible and strategic for the business owners, right? - Exactly. - And right now, I mean, you have programs such as DDX, EasyStone that has X-Factory. And that's something that can combine all your machines and track pieces. But again, on that front end with more aware sales force, whatever you use, your follow-ups, that's, I agree with you all where that's where it's going to come in, where your sales call follow-ups are huge, right? In a fabrication shop, I mean, if you're not following up, you're not making the sales. And, you know, that information is, and those clothes, they can say, they're huge. So you're absolutely right. I see that in the future as well. - Rich, you had showed me this and it was pretty cool. And I want to get the take on it or at least the feedback. So when you and I were demoing, right, what Thrive was doing, and you showed me kind of those tools that you guys had built. But the one that was really interesting to me and we had a follow-up conversation on it, but it was pretty much along the lines of where we're already going down. But if I'm a shop owner, right? And I'm inputting this AI from what I saw from you. It's almost like the machines are going to raise their hand, right, when they have capacity and they're gonna tell, you know, I'm $100 an hour and I'm ready to go. I'd love to get the groups take on AI, saying that to the shop, right? And not so much to replace that person, you know, whether it's a shop, form, and whatever. But just that intelligence for the business to see that, and the machines actually raising their hand, saying, hey, I have work at $100 an hour or whatever that looks like. So any of your guys just take on that 'cause that was super interesting to me for the AI component. - Yeah, so for me, one of my favorite things that I like to tell the customers is, we can give you the sports car. And how you drive it depends on what kind of lap times you get out of that same thing with machinery. And so, you know, you can buy as much equipment as you want and you can put it in your shop and maybe you're not profitable with it. And it's how you manage that workload and how you manage the pieces coming through and how they're getting cut and how you're, you know, running the performance on your routers and what you're cutting out with your sauce beads and where you go from that and how you separate the pieces off the saw and to go into which machines that truly, after you look at a bunch of data with a bunch of shops, is the X factor in guys being profitable, the shops being profitable around this country. And so, you know, having that information and understanding what that information is and where those pieces go and have management be able to look at them and make better decisions is really a missing link to the industry for these people being successful, these shops being successful out there. - That's, it's actually what CMS has with IoT. They were calling it CMS Connect. And so that analytical data of the machine runtime, you know, what first and second shift are already doing. And so, what the story is, it's basically a shop had a first and second shift, but they were doing 30% less. And instead of hiring an employee, they had that data right there. And when they asked, you know, more or less, they said, "Why are you 30%, 40% lower than what first shift is?" If I run the tools full speed, I got to do more work. So, you know, I mean, that software is actually, you know, being worked on, which I expect all you, all the companies to really incorporate that in the future. But you're exactly right, Nick. It's all about how you handle it. I agree with you. - Yeah, and I, - Hey, - Hey, check. Oh, no, Nick go. - I was gonna say, I think we're all running cycle times and stuff like that on our machines and, you know, able to collect some of that data, you know, coming out of the equipment, but, you know, it's about that machine raising its hand. It's about, you know, understanding what that process flow is. And, and it making decisions based off of the type of equipment that's sitting there where it should go. You know, maybe it's a saw that's sitting empty, but the other saw is probably better to be cutting that piece of material. Those decisions need to be made by, you know, management level sometimes to make sure that it's going to the right piece of equipment. - Yeah. And, you know, we've seen in other industries, and yeah, let me know if this is part of CMS's IoT solution, is, you know, AI-based cameras throughout the floor, right? And so anything with the barcode on it, they know exactly where that piece is, right? It is, it has the visibility that everything being done. So you talk about, you know, job timing something. It knows the minute it's done on the saw, how long it took to get to the router, and it's just a bunch of cameras that are keeping an eye on everything. - Yeah, not that far, but that's coming. I think we're all of us for our industry, but in other industries, 100%. - Megan, I saw it surfaces. Wasn't there, tell me a little bit about you, because I think you guys had a code, a new updated kind of code system that goes on to the slab. I believe I saw that at your booth. - Yeah, we gave a little sneak peek. Again, I think we're all focused on, how do we make our equipment smarter and more accessible user friendly? We wanna make sure that it's adding value. We have a new, what we call smart vision capability that's coming out for our sawjet lineup. So we gave a little sneak peek about that at taste, but it helps remove the error of, error of human error element out of slab placement and programming on the sawjots. I guess kind of in a nutshell, we're not quite ready for release yet. So it was a little sneak peek, but more to come this summer. - Was that me? - And the old fashions were good too. - And the old fashions were great too. I mean, come on. - Error. - At the real highlight. But. - Hot wings, the hot wings was, your guys is right? - Yeah, the hot wings were in our booth too. So yeah, marketing's always coming up with fun, crazy things that they get everyone involved in. But I think we talked about learnings from other industries. You know, I think you're gonna get more of the vision systems, right, and how to better utilize camera technology into the fabrication process. You're also going to see, I think, a big push for machine connectivity. Having the right API and connectivity capabilities across the equipment platforms. In other industries, there's a big focus on productivity software, so having, I think in this industry, you've got fifth gear bringing things to market. You've got software like BP metrics. I think, again, these platforms that can help, the, our business owners be more informed on the productivity of their business. And they're gonna be looking for the ability, like let's say if Avocator finds a software platform that really works for them and their business, they're gonna wanna make sure that the equipment that they have has the connectivity capabilities to leverage that software. And so I think you see that often in other industries and that is starting to push into ours. - Yeah, very definitely. You were talking about AI, and I'm excited about all. I'm hearing that you guys are talking about, especially on the predictive maintenance side of things. I see so many shops struggle with preventive maintenance. I'm gonna get a machine telling you, raising its hands and say, hey, this spindle bearing is getting ready to go, you better get one on order because I've already ordered it. Planned on changing it out this weekend. I think that's phenomenal. But I'm looking at it too, where I live, up about an hour from BMW's North American headquarters. Rare large automotive plant. They've been using bipedal, this is humanoid type robots and testing them in their production lines. I'm looking at some of the safety issues both with carrying heavy weights and also with the whole Silicosa issue. Do you guys think that that's kind of in our future as well? - I think about 10 years after the next industry figures it out. It's almost still an industry work. - It's interesting how you say that 'cause my background's manufacturing of all types. I've been in this industry 25 years, but before that, I have worked at all sorts of industries. And friends of mine asked me after I got heavily into this industry, what's it like? I said, well, it's 20 years behind everybody else. But what's been interesting in the last 20 years is watching how quickly this industry is catching up. When I got into this industry 25 years ago, average shop, according to the buy, was $3 million a year in sales. There were no CNC machines. You had a bridge saw and I was about to hit it. Everything else was a blue ripper and that sort of stuff. And now typical $3 million shop can't be competitive without CNC equipment. It's really changed. So I understand you're a sentiment Nick, but I really think it's gonna be sooner than that. I think the cost is coming down. Musk is predicting like $10,000 units that will be reliable and usable and practical. Rich, you had somebody that you know if it's actually ordered some? - Yeah, I get a good friend who owns shop in Dallas. It's a good sized shop. And this is the end of the video. of four Tesla robots on order and their intention with the four is one's going to drive a four-clift. Okay, that sounds easy enough. Two are going to do hand fab and then one's going to move material around. And so I think there's still four to five months out from there. They're on a wait list right now, but they basically just took a flyer and said, let's give this thing a whirl and see what happens. So it'll be interesting, you know, soon what happens with with those guys. Those are a 40 40 grand of peaks, right? Yeah. Sorry, man. Yeah, I was I was just I'm probably leaning more with Nick on this. I think there's going to be people that embrace that technology sooner than others. I come from automotive. I've been in stone mouth for five years and, you know, certainly that technology wasn't accessible five years ago, but even, you know, in sophisticated manufacturing facilities, they're applying robotic technology where it makes the most sense, right? You've got repeatable processes. You're trying to remove human air from a process, right? It's those high volume redundant repeatable processes or where they feel they can improve safety or experience for their workers on the shop floor. So I think the thought process for technology remains the same and that technology is great and it enhances good operations, but it's not necessarily going to start replacing, I think, good people from a process. And as a fabricator, you still have to have a focus on good practices and processes and you need to find ways to drive efficiency within your facilities and then identify where you need to put the technology. But you can't throw technology at in, I think, a poorly run operation. You have to take the time to really evaluate your workflow. Where are you seeing waste? Where are you seeing inefficiencies? Where are, you know, where's rework happening? Where are you breaking material? You have to do the hard work first and then you can really start to evaluate, hey, where can I put technology? Whether that's a new machine, whether that's a robotic process within your workflow, or I mean, I guess these crazy humanoid robots, right? But we'll probably eventually play a bigger role in the manufacturing space, but I don't know. I just don't see humanoid robots running around shops and doing that. I don't think you know the stone industry. Hey, we, but you know what? Like, we could be entirely wrong, right? True. Very true. We could see something really crazy shift. I mean, look how, look how quickly the app life phone took over, right? I mean, that try to imagine functioning without a smartphone today. So, yeah. And your vice is spot-all-mechanist. It's good. As you're talking, I'm going back to my classic industrial engineering roots in the textile industry. You know, it's just that really good common sense to evaluate your process and figure out the best application of technology. Because technology for technology is safe is never a good solution. You're right. You got to think about where to apply. And one of the challenges in this industry, we've got such a high percentage of shops are really small businesses run by folks who are still to some degree trying to figure out how to run the business side of things. They know the, they know how to make countertops, but they're trying to figure out how to make them profitably to do that consistently. So, it's certainly great advice. Part of what I'm thinking about is we're talking about technology, talking about machinery, obviously buying these types of machines, any of those technologies that make me cheaper, typically, and buying these machines are big, expensive line items for shops. If you had some advice for a shop owner that's going to maybe make that first step and they're going to buy that first, we talked about a CNC bridge saw being that first step, how do you advise them to justify making that investment, spending that kind of money when you're maybe a two or three million dollar shop getting rid of to buy that first machine. Do it now. But if they go, if they're going to go to a boat, typically what happens with a small fabricator looking to make the, make what I call the digital transition is, you know, it takes them about 90 days where they got to kind of work through it and figure out how it fits into their into their process and changes their business. And about 90 days later, they look at you and they say, I don't know why I ever lived without this. And so, you know, it's the hardest part is taking the first step. But, you know, if you're running two to three million dollars right now, you're buying a machine, you just don't realize you're buying a machine, you're buying it in waste, you're buying it in labor, you're buying in mistakes, you're buying in all of these other places. And then often people forget the business of buying machines. Buying machines is good for your business, their tax deductions. Section 179s that are out there. And you can write a lot of that off. A lot of the interest off is an expense. And so, you know, you're looking to go buy another, hire another employee that is temporary wages that can leave you anytime they want. And, you know, you can take on a machine payment for five to seven years and it increases your business and increases your, and increases your quality. It allows you to offer things like BayneMatch that, you know, you're not doing now. And really helps you kind of bridge the gap between your large fabricator in the, in the market that you're competing against when you're just still a small shop. And so, you know, going digital, you should have done it yesterday. Yeah. I agree with you Nick. What are you going to do? I agree. Let me ask a question on that a little bit, right? Because I used to be with laser products. And we would always say the first stepping going digital is to buy a laser, right? It's to start, again, we wanted to sell lasers. That's why we said that. That was a, what would you guys? And I know, Nick and Megan, you guys both sell scanners too. What would you guys? And I know, you know, we mentioned earlier, five access, you know, five access saws, probably the first purchase. Would you recommend a piece of equipment before a digital templating machine or before a scanner? What's your kind of logic as far as what to buy first? I think your first investment should always be where you're losing money today. And I think Nick, that's what you were getting at. It, it, and I think for a lot of our fabricators, especially the ones that are still currently manual, that is what they're cutting process, right? And so, I think that's why that's the logical first investment. And, you know, we've seen fabricators that have gone digital with the template or first and that worked great for them. It got them kind of comfortable with a more automated process. And then that forced the need to move to a saw. And then we've seen people that went the saw route first and then very quickly realized it's probably good for me to follow with a template. I think it really comes down to your like your business on if you would invest in a vision system. I don't ever see that probably being someone's first goal at automating a process. Again, you're probably not losing money with how you're you're imaging. I imagine you're probably not doing very much imaging if you're a small manual shop. So I, I don't think that's where we're going to see people invest first. But I think often it's still the side. I don't think anything's changed in the market today. I don't know, Nick and Alex, if you would agree or disagree, but no, I agree with you there. I, I, I think that's that's a great point selling leaders first. So, you know, and then they find themselves, well, what's the digital print do for me? You know, and then they're buying a saw. So I do see there's a lesser entry level investment. But, you know, and some of the manufacturers have the camera's ability and within the software, easy stone per thing and, you know, digitize the slab. But it's one slab at a time where they don't see it as very, you know, usable in their process, right? So, yeah, I agree with you. I don't think they're buying us, us hand or first unless they sell material and they're getting into a shop, you know? So, I had a, I had a fabricator that I think it fell about how do you get comfortable with technology? I had a fabricator that started like their first go at automating or going digital was having an app where their customers could book their template time or install time, right? And it just for them, it got them comfortable with automating a portion of their business. So, I think sometimes it's just the fear of I'm making an investment in something that I have historically done myself. And I, I think that's the beauty of our industry, you know, and you were talking a little bit about like, we've got a lot of fabricators that know how to make great countertops. We're very entrepreneurial. We've got hands on guys that have built their businesses and gals that have built their business from the ground. up. And so part of I think going digital or automating is letting go of some of that control, right? This is something that I've done and I've done well. And now I'm going to rely on technology to help me with that. And I would agree with Nick and the comment he made earlier that I think that's what holds people back at times is that fear of making that first investment. Then they finally do it and they're like, how did I ever do this before? I think once they get through the learning curve, it's something they get very comfortable with very quickly. Yeah, sure. Someone bought a machine that's using paper folders still. Is that a common thing? Or have they advanced into some basic type of software for sales and that kind of thing? Have you guys seen that? Are there a lot of shops that go right from paper folder, you know, job folders to purchasing machine or have they advanced past that typically when they come to you guys for machine? I'm with Megan on each one of them has to find their own journey. Yeah. The only consistent thing in this industry is inconsistency. And so how you get there, how you get there is your path. You know, I go back to thinking about, you know, is it the laser, is it the saw, it's the chicken, it's the egg, they end up getting there, you know, either direction they go first. And so I think that also goes with the paperwork and the up front side of their business as well. The paperwork is incredibly personal to the fabricator. How they're managing their jobs, some they need to see it, they need the paper, some of them, they just, that's what they know, that's how they've done it. And so I don't know that there's one right answer for how they manage that front end of their business. I agree with that. This might be a little bit of a segue, but I think Nick, you hit it where like the one thing consistent about this industry is inconsistency and a lot of people are building their business from the ground up. There's not like a how to on how to be a surfaces fabricator, stone fabricator. And I think that's why this industry is so reliant on networking and events in trade shows more so than any other industry I've seen. I mean, it's such an incredibly personal industry and they're really dependent on networking and building relationships and learning from each other. I think that's one of the things that makes our industry really fun too. Yeah. Yep. I think we've got to better look at our right recipe to it. Yeah, I think looking at other industries, I don't see the level of membership organizations and other industries that I do here, you know, NSI, SFA, Rockheads, Artisan Group, all-slap fibers and they run the gamut of what they offer, you know, and I think it's just, I think it's a great aspect of this industry. I still shocked at how many clients I talk to that have never been to one of those meetings. They don't not remember any of those groups and they've never been to a trade show. And it's like guys, there's so much help out there. One question I got a few folks, if you come out, equipment and technology and cost and all that, Richa and Rockheads, when he was at Rockheads did a phenomenal job of the benchmark. He's one of things I really like about what Rockheads does. And he was sharing the earlier, before we got started, that even, you know, everybody's probably heard the rule that in today's technology, the way we run shops that your total annual sales divided by your number of employees should push at about $200,000 a year in sales per head count as a ballpark. That's a good benchmark that the Rockheads has proven year in and year out. But Richa, sharing that when you go back to the pre-CNC days, that that rule was still a good rule, even in the manual shops. And one of the promises of CNC technology was, okay, we'll go from 200 up. Now we're talking about AI, we're talking about robotics, things like that. Are those technologies going to help us move that benchmark from 200 to 300 to 400 or get up close to $400,000 in sales per employee like other industries? Or do you think we're going to still be stuck somewhere around 200? Great question. Hard to tell. I mean, all right. I have a, we could predict the future, right? I know with our machine, like at ties, what we had on there, something like the Cartiti with the dynamic table, I mean, that costs is exponentially higher than a regular router. But comes down to repeatability. So I don't really have the answer to that one. Maybe Nick or Megan. I don't think I have it. One, I'm probably a little removed from that benchmarking and the math and modeling behind what I think right or typical for the fabricator. I think at the end of the day, within a technology, it's about saving money, increasing capacity, or improving overall efficiency and profitability. And I understand that there's probably a typical benchmark that's average for the industry. But again, every shop's going to look a little bit different. And so I think if you're making the right investment, whether you're overall sales by headcount increases, I think it's more about the profitability of your business. And are you more profitable? Are you more efficient? Are you seeing less waste? Are you able to grow in scale with less headcount, right? Through the investments that you're making? That might be why that number remains relatively fixed. So I'd be more curious on I've made this investment in this machine technology, whatever it may be. And yes, my headcount is 200,000 and it's still 200,000. I'm more worried about their profitability. Ideally, you're seeing an increase in their overall profitability. Yeah, otherwise why do it? No question about that. Yep. So Nick, one of your comments early on was that you helped, I'm going to shift gears on this here just a little bit. You were one of the original drivers of CISA and then eventually Surefax. And for folks who don't know it, Surefax is a trade show that'll be an Indianapolis fall of 27 will be just for this industry. But there's some impact on ties. And I'm thinking about, you know, a typical fab shop owner that wants to go to a trade show every year, every other year. If they didn't make ties this year, should they make ties next year? What's it going to look like compared to years past? What's Surefax going to look like? Any of you, I mean, Nick, you probably know more because you're on the inside track of this. But what can we share with shop owners to couple of good decision on what to expect? Well, you know, CISA was really brought about in order to help create a better trade show all the way around. We have landed on Surefax as our trade show moving forward. We're fortunate enough that we've got about 70 plus vendor members that are in our group and have all agreed to come with us and create this new trade show in Indianapolis. So I think if you look at ties next year, you're going to find that there won't be a lot of large equipment there. Most of us have pulled out. And so, you know, we're, I think a lot of us are going just to burn up some maybe rebate credit that we had at at ties and really to inform anybody that's showing up to ties that if they want to see the machinery in the gear, you know, to really show up in Indianapolis. We worked and really tried to work with ties and the other trade shows out there to move the trade show around to, you know, to help us put it at a better time of year. It's a tough time of year for us to have a trade show in January. And so we're met with some resistance. And so, you know, we chose Indianapolis because historically, if you look at a thousand fabricators that show up at a trade show, about 60 to 70% of those fabricators are the same fabricators. We know these guys, they're showing up, they're coming every year. We're happy to see them, you know, they understand the value of being at a trade show. They're going to be there. Whether that's on the East Coast, whether that's on the West Coast, you know, we're fortunate enough to have those members join us. And so what we're really talking about is the smaller section of the attendees that show up. And we know that about 80% of those are showing up within driving distance of that trade show. And so, Indianapolis is very centrally located has a large population of the United States. that's within an eight hour drive to be able to join us there. It's a great convention town. I didn't even know that when we were really starting to look at it, but it's a great convention town. It's easy to get in and out. It's nice downtown. They got great hotels connected to the convention center. And so, you know, all of us on the board, and I think a lot of our members that we've talked to, we're all really excited to have that trade show begin. It's going to be in, you know, in November, but we're going to try and keep it, you know, at the end of the year. We're the old Stone Expo way back in the early 2000s used to be. Better time of year for our fabricators to be looking at purchasing machinery. They know they got money to spend. They're looking for equipment. So, and it allows us as our own show to be able to move it around. So, you know, we locked ourselves in the first couple of years in the NNAPELIS that allows a consistency. It allows us as a group to get our feet on the ground and have a nice trade show there. And then we're talking about being able to move that trade show around. East Coast, West Coast, similar to what Stone Expo used to be. Stone Expo East one year, Stone Expo West. And allows us to get to our fabricators that don't want to go to Vegas every year. They don't want to go to Florida. They want to be able to drive to their show, come and see us as vendor members, and really get, you know, more and different fabricators to show up there. So, I'm super excited about it. I'm very passionate about it. And happy that we've had, you know, all of our vendor members join us. So, what's the big guy? I'm going to be sad. So, I'm not going to have to walk six rows to one side to get around the Mohawk booth anymore. No. It's not a mile walk from the Luxor to the Mandalay. Well, no. No. So, we're very excited about being an Indianapolis. And I think it's going to be great for the fabricators. And hopefully we get a lot of the fabricators to show up. So, in 2027, you're looking to go to a trade show, spend your time, come see us in Indianapolis, and you'll see all the gear and all the machinery. So, I'm so excited. Now, I was just going to say, I think overall, the industry's excited. I know a lot of the big brands are really behind the move to Sirfax. And it is going to position us to show up better for the fabricator, too. We have a lot more flexibility. We have just the opportunity to put our best foot forward. And make sure that we are showcasing what the fabricator is looking for. That's across all brands. I mean, whether you're an equipment provider or otherwise. So, I think it's going to be a really great show. The floor plan is amazing. Right? I mean, looking at the initial floor plan, it's absolutely amazing. And so, I talked to a bunch of shops at TICE, and they're excited. I guess the fabricator perspective is, they can call their BBI guy or their Grand Courts guy any time, and they'll bring some new stuff to them. But what they can't see are the machines. So, any show that's going to be focused on the machines, that's where they're going to go. So, I think you guys are going to have a really successful show. And I do probably four or five either volleyball or basketball tournaments a year in Indy. And I absolutely love the city. The hotels are reasonably priced. It's clean. The streets are safe. You can just wander around. So, I literally couldn't have picked a better-- if you would have said, pick any city for this, I personally wouldn't have picked Indy. Yeah, I wasn't expecting it. I mean, that's-- you know, we had a lot of people looking into it. I'm thankful for John Lankto, who helps run CISA. He does a phenomenal job, and, you know, really brings a lot of that stuff to us on the board. And so, I was surprised as well. And then, as we were talking about it, he showed us. We went down and looked at the space. It's going to be great. It's going to be a great first place for us to have a show and really get our feet on the ground and put together a nice show. And, you know, as Megan said, it's more affordable for all of us vendors to be there. Allows us to have bare boots and more equipment and be able to show more things that were, you know, a lot of times, cost prohibitive to get into Vegas and those unions. So, what's the size of the exhibit hall compared to Vegas? What's that look like, roughly? So, you know, it's a tough comparison because Tice is primarily a flooring show. And about 70% of that show is flooring. And so, we looked at our vendor members and looked at the space that we need. And I think that that show is about 350,000 square feet. It's a sizable show, you know, that you got to put space in for highways and common areas. And stuff like that. And so, it's large enough to manage all of the boots for the stone industry that we need at the moment. And hopefully, we get more and more people come in and we have to go look for bigger spaces and bigger venue. But for right now, it certainly covers all of our vendor members and gives us a space. Sweet. Fantastic. Why not Salt Lake City, Nick? We've had the Olympics once. We're going to give it a second time. Rich wants to be able to walk. So, I mean, I would like to be able to walk. So, it's open to you. Salt Lake City, if you could, I need an invite. I do believe Salt Lake City is on the list for 29. Hello, we haven't chosen a location. I do believe it's on the short list on the West Coast, yes. I got you. That's awesome. Eric, I feel like Salt Lake is getting a lot of attention this year. There's a couple industry event. I think Fabricator Forum's coming up and Salt Lake this year too. Yep. So, you've got it's fun June and then ASF in July. Yep. It'll be fun. But yeah, Salt Lake City is obviously I'm selfish, but it's a nice job. Very cool. Well, folks, this has been a fantastic session. I think that's a really good conversation. It's got a lot of good information. Any closing thoughts any of you have? I appreciate the opportunity, guys. Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to come here and speak our wares. That's actually a great, I'll reach for our industry. I agree. Fantastic. We'll go. Yeah, we can. Yep, with everybody. Thanks for the back and forth. I, it's awesome. Love it. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, we appreciate it. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Go. Man, guys, I get to do the outro. Rich and Ed told me, man, just try it. You're not good at what you do, but man, maybe the more you do it, repetition, right? So, man, we had some incredible conversations with the machinery, guys. I was, I was, you know, for you to, I want to get your opinion on this, but I was actually surprised at how much these guys agree with each other. I mean, three unique personalities, three much different companies, right? I was surprised, man, they, they agree very, very well with each other. So I, I didn't know your guys just take on that from the conversation. I give me some feedback on that. Same, Eric. I, I, I, I totally the same perspective. I, I was surprised too, especially around what really gets me excited is all of them basically saying we need to share our data, right? Four shops to really take advantage of automation in the future. We've got to be part of the data sharing. And that was the, if you would ask me beforehand, what was the one thing I hoped they would say, that was it, and we got it in spades, right? So that, that gets me really, you know, in the past, it's been, you know, more aware with all its scheduling and customer service and CRM. And then it goes into this chasm of machines. And then you hope it comes back out, right now. And I love the analogy. I think it was you. And I was absolutely aware about a machine raising its hand and saying, hey, I'm ready. I'm a, I'm 125 bucks an hour, send me some stuff to do, right? And, and you saw, Megan get on board with that. And, and get a reference it later. So to me, this was, you know, we kind of bummed everyone out last week with the darn silicosis stuff. This one to me was exciting and fun. Yeah, there's positive stuff coming. You're, you're taking into what, what did you, what did you get from it? Well, I really like the fact that we were able to give a shop owner some good advice. I think Megan's take on how you apply technology was absolutely solid gold. I think that's just just, if you, in fact, if you don't remember what you said, it's worth doing a rewind going back and hitting that because that was just so solid, so good. It was interesting. We had this question about this, you know, this, this industry benchmark, $200,000 per employee in terms of, of what your annual sales divided by, you never were employed, it should be around 200 and how that really hasn't changed in decades and decades even with automation. Yep. And we didn't get much response on that. And I think it's probably some, maybe a new concept for them to think about in some respects. Yeah. I've been pondering that question ever since which brought this up a while back. Yep. And I think what's happening is that as we apply new technology, it starts lowering the cost of production for everybody. You think about the cost, you know, 30, 40 years ago, building countertops by hand. Our tops are not affordable, but. by most people because they were so expensive. That's part of why as a manual shop, you'd have $200,000 in sales per employee. You start automating that now, Kenner tops are not as expensive. And with the industry has changed and that we've gotten much more sources of materials, it's not all natural. We've got a lot of manmade materials, different types of manmade materials. Material costs has come down in many ways. And so I think because the industry has changed, if we didn't have the automation, we'd have a completely different industry. In a lot of respects, metric may be totally different. Wouldn't be 200,000 anymore. So as we look at applying technology down the road, hoping to move that bar from 200,000 up to be more like other manufacturing industries, it may be tougher to move than we think. You know, the technology may not do that. It may allow us to keep up. But again, I think a lot of the profitability is, how we apply that. And then as we talk about in this session, we talked about it's how well you're going to shop and how well you use what you've got that really drives your profitability. Not whether you have a certain technology or not, but how well you use it. - Yeah. And at the end of the day, it makes my tummy hurt that our guys work so hard and are such good folks in our industry average is four to five percent of EBITDA. And that's net profit. It just, it shouldn't be. You know, in a semi luxury manufacturing industry, right, we, you know, we could talk 200 K per employee like we've been talking. - Yep. - It's not fair, right? And that our guys are only earning four to five percent and we've got to fix that. And you know, that's kind of when I wake up in the morning thinking about. - Well, it's fixable. And I think we're really good. I don't want to be deep into it right now because we're talking about this episode. But there's a lot of factors in impact that. And I'll just leave that right there. But I agree, we have to fix that in the industry. The, it is fixable with current technology. I think new technology certainly will make it easier to fix, no question. I think some of the stuff that's out there, you know, we talked a lot about AI in this episode. I think a lot of the potential of AI is going to make it easier to address a lot of those issues. But I think the things that need to happen to help fix that technology just can make it easier to get that done. - Yeah. - I agree, it has to happen because again, you're right. We work too hard. These folks put in too much time and effort. Gotta get better, Richard, for sure. - Yep. It's hoping for like a gotcha answer, right? On the, you know, we had the one question T-Dub that all three of us liked before the episode, which is if you're a small, you know, if you're a small shop and you want to take that first step, man, I thought we would get a gotcha and all of them kind of said this thing. It really depends on your business. I'm like, now you gotta tell me, I gotta buy, you know, XYZ machine and I put it right on the shop floor and I make a hundred K more every month, right? - But I think there was a consensus around starting with the salt, with cutting. I think that that's the thing I heard the most of and I think if you're really pressed and I think they'd probably say that. - Well, Richard's trying to sell LPI laser still. And I'm like, come on. - Yeah, I mean, and that really is the real answer. (laughing) - Well, I hope the conversation around trade shows was good too. - That's a great question. - Well, I've been hearing from folks is okay, should I go to ties next year? What should I do? And I've been saying, I'm not sure about ties and these folks confirmed they just won't be that much next year in Vegas. Indy is the place to be November, 2027. - Yeah, I think I told you both, right? It seemed like they had the marketing managers coming after ties and I was at a couple of the bigger booths and heard the interactions. How was the show? But it seemed just that level of desperate. I think ties is an entirely different show next year. I mean, it's gonna be a show of itself, right? And I think they'll fill that up with more flooring. I mean, it is absolutely a flooring super show. - But we've got a lot of time between now and January, right? So we've got other projects that we need to work on to fix this darn industry, right? So our cadence moving forward, correct me if I'm on gentleman is our next episode will be out in a couple of weeks. It will be a guest free one, right? Where we were just kind of catching up on everything. As much as I want to avoid it, I don't think we can avoid the topics on silicosis, tariffs, allosia, banning courts, right? Because every day, like there was a callosia meeting yesterday, right? And so every day there's April 1st, which will be after or before whatever the group, you will have already happened by the time we air the next one or take the next one. Yeah, that will already be decided on if there's 50% tariffs on court, in board of court. So as much as I hate always going to that negative, we've got to talk about all that stuff. And then I'm sure there'll be some cool new things sneaking into that. And Eric, I know this is your baby, and I'm totally with you. Why don't you share with everybody what the next guest invite, you know, main podcast is going to be about. Yeah, we want to be, and we want it to be edgy, right? We want to get this back and forth. And one thing I've been teeing up, and I think it's there. So I'm going to call, you know, I'm going to call it out for our next episode. But there seems to be a widening chasm between fabricators and wholesalers, right? I think at one point they were much, much closer than they are. And you're just seeing this, right? Fabricators have their initiative, and it seems like wholesalers are doing their thing, right? So I want to address that. Rich and I have some really, really interesting guys we've talked about. Obviously we'll have to have Ed uses a beautiful Southern draw to get these guys invited and approved. But man, if we can get the right guests together, I really want to see that back and forth between fabricators and wholesalers, and just address the chasm between them. And it seems like it's growing, in my opinion. Yeah, and I'll second that right again. I was out in DC and a handful of wholesalers in America, I'm targeting you on this because you're my token wholesaler. Right? We're describing our shops, my shops, my friends, your enemies Eric, as brownie cutters, right? And so we will certainly be having that discussion with the crew at the tier also. Yep, that's awesome. Yeah, I think. You want to know more about that, go back to our first episode. I think we talked about that just a little bit. Yep. Because you refreshed back from that test when it's the hearing there. Yeah, well guys, I think we've got some good stuff lined up. I'm excited. We're not sure if we're going to record this next episode before or after you're back from coverings. You talk about that schedule, but a lot of interesting things coming up. And folks, as you're listening, if you've got ideas on topics you'd like for us to cover, again, this is all for you. It's not for us. Yeah, we've got some ego's like to hear ourselves talk sometimes. But we will, this is all for you. So if you got some things you want to hear about, reach out to us. Let us know, put it in show notes, email us, call us, whatever. We want to provide content that is useful to you at Stab Shop Unters. Love it. Agreed. Awesome. All right, kiddos. Perfect. Good chat with you as always. And we'll talk soon. Sounds good. Thanks, guys. Have a great one. Yep. See you. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]