No. Fantastic. So, gene, thank you very much for taking the time to, join this call. Right? I mean, you know, we just wanna, you know, hear about your, experience using load proof and, you know, how, you know, it’s it’s enhanced your operations and things like that.

So, you know, if you could please, introduce, you know, yourself, right, your role, your, you know, operations, you know, tasks that you do on a daily basis, you know, we can get started there. Very good. My name is Gene Korlowski. My specific role is that of the quality systems, manager. But my specific responsibilities really are, chief, change agent, and, data storyteller.

Yeah. My role here in in, world class industries really is to manage the quality, the quality system, and and, ensure compliance, for for our customers. WCI is a small Midwest supply chain integrator. Yep. We’re we’re we’re in the agriculture and and construction segment.

Okay. We’re a small company, but we, we have big we have, big ideas, and we we certainly do our fair share of of business here with some key customers like, Caterpillar, John Deere Yep. CNH, those types of of customers. Great. My experience with, Loadproof, has been a it’s been a very positive experience.

Yep. The chief issue that we were trying to, to solve was providing, empirical objective evidence to our customers Yeah. Of the state of our product when it left our facility. Okay. So so if you could, you know, please talk about so we know who is I know, right, your customer is John Deere.

What is the process that you guys are are you guys feeding to their JIT supply chain or, you know, how does that work? If you could please give us some background. Sure. As a as a supply chain integrator, what we do for for, John Deere and and, Caisson and other customers is we assemble material for them. Okay.

Largely, we source material Yep. To their specification. Yep. And we assemble a, a top level unit for them for further assembly at their, at their sites. Got it.

So we get raw material in. Yep. We assemble that raw material to a specific state. Yep. And then we ship that material to them for further, assembly into Caterpillar, tractors or John Deere tractors and, that that type of, material.

Got it. Got it. And and, you know, what is the I mean, it’s it’s it’s going it feeding into some kind of an assembly line. Right? Obviously, it’s, you know, in the manufacturing world and, you know, when all these, tractors and, you know, things are involved.

It’s it’s feeding into an assembly line. So if there is some problem, that’s a major impact. Right? Because I’ve heard you know, I mean, I’m a I’m a mechanical engineer myself, so, you know, I’ve been fascinated with these things. And and, I’ve heard stories where, hey.

If the assembly line stops even for a few minutes, few hours, that’s a major loss for so many parties that are involved in in supplying to that assembly line. Right? That’s a big deal. Correct? Correct.

You know, just in time delivery is is a crucial component of, you know, of our relationship with our our customers, but it’s not just important enough to have it on time. Yeah. The material has to has to be, to spec Yeah. And and ready for assembly. K.

So we we we deliver our products, at a negotiated time Yep. In a, at a state that is ready for their assembly line. So, essentially, our assembly line Yep. And their assembly lines are geographically separated, but in synchronicity with each other. Exactly.

Exactly. That synchronization is extremely important because whatever comes out of your assembly line, you know, feeds into their assembly line. So they they meet their numbers on a daily basis. Right? You guys have your numbers that you gotta produce on a daily basis, and they got their numbers that they have to produce, you know, on a daily basis as well.

So, you know, what happens if something goes wrong or, you know, one part one, you know, component that was, you know, shipped that did not have that, screw or fastener, you know, what happens, to John Deere’s assembly line? Yeah. And certainly, we do a lot, in, you know, to to safeguard that that activity, you know, whether it’s through remediation of our processes or or our delivery structure. You know, we have a a a daily quota, you know, and they will tell us, hey. Today, we need x amount of of, parts, to meet our assembly schedule.

Yep. And, you know, we have to have that ready. If it’s not, you’re absolutely correct. Yeah. If our assembly line stops, their assembly line stops, and and, it’s something that we have to avoid, at all cost.

You know, we do a lot of a lot of, risk management to ensure that, you know, we if we’re if we’re going to deliver 10, assemblies, you know, that we actually, prepare to build 12 Yep. Case Yep. Of some kind of a component failure or material failure. Yeah. So so you guys make that 12, you know, 2 extra whatever to, you know, cover that material failure.

Do you guys ship it to them also, or you just keep it in a standby stock, you know, for within your facility itself? So that becomes, part you know, so if in fact we don’t have to Okay. That becomes part of tomorrow’s Okay. Inventory. Yeah.

So, you know, hopefully, we’re too ahead Yeah. If we if we intended, to to deliver 10, but we built 12. Yeah. Hopefully, we’re too ahead. You know, but it it, you know, you can only do so much of that.

Right? Because you’re getting mater you’re you’re getting raw material in the back door Correct. And pushing finished product out the front door. Correct. So you can’t get too far ahead of yourself Exactly.

Or you just will run out of material. Correct. Now now we’re also I mean, you know, if you’re if you’re gonna accumulate, hey, 2 or 4 or 10 extra, you know, that results in inventory cost as well. Right? That is an inventory cost that you guys have to That carrying cost of that of that inventory, you know, can be cost prohibitive after a while.

There is you know, depending on the material that we’re building Yep. You know, sometimes it’s a very simple, hood cover. Sometimes it’s a very expensive, you know, harvester. Yep. You know, that is literally, you know, 100 of 1,000 of dollars a piece, so you can’t get too far ahead of yourself on those.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So great. Great.

So that that helps understand. I mean, it’s not a typical, you know, shipping operation. It’s a highly time sensitive, you know, synchronized, you know, manufacture and deliver no. Manufacture assembly and deliver to the another assembly line operation that’s much more, you know, sophisticated than a, hey. You know what?

I fulfill this order. I build these pallets, and then I’m loading and shipping. Right? That’s what, you know, the business that we come from. So, you know, that’s that’s pretty sensitive.

So do you guys just run, you know, 1 shift or 2 shift, 3 shifts? You know, how many shifts are you guys running? We’re multiple shift operation. We we operate out of 9 different facilities, and each one of them have, independent customer needs. Some are, one shift operations.

Some are typically 2 shift operations. Sometimes we run, a little bit of a mid shift, to carry over in between the two shift changes. Got it. Got it. Got it.

Okay. So, you know, what was the, you know, problem, you know, you were trying to solve with your customer? Is it like, hey. You know what? Look at this.

Right? From a visibility perspective, you know, we are doing a phenomenal job, you know, making sure we build perfectly, you know, these codes or, you know, whatever the components are harvested or something like that. You know, that you guys are building, you know, to the spec perfectly and then shipping it, showing, demonstrating that, or is it something else that was going on, you know, stuff was getting lost? Our level of quality was very important to us Yeah. To be able to have the empirical evidence that, you know, when a when a, material left our, facility that we had the right number Yep.

And the right type Yep. And that the, that the quality of that product met their specifications. Yep. You know, anything from scratches Yep. To missing or damaged hardware Yep.

Was really important that we show objective evidence that, when it left our facility Yep. It was it was loaded into our customers’ crate crating material, you know, that it was, you know, in fact complete and and ready for their assembly lines. We needed to do 2 things. We need to provide that assurance Yep. And that that the material was ready and that the material had actually left so they could keep the lines synchronized.

Exactly. Exactly. So so, you know, we have seen this a lot because, you know, when when you folks ship, you know, we have lot of, you know, shippers that ship to retailers, you know, shippers that ship to construction sites. You know, you guys are one that ship to assembly lines. So and what happens is, obviously, you know, the retailers, when there is a problem, you know, they’re not able not able to process the product through their supply chain.

So they end up doing it manually and they impose those as, penalties to the suppliers. And then even in the construction industry, if there is a delay or something happens, you know, if because, right, one party delays something and everybody else support get delayed, so they all get together and, you know, apply penalties as well. Do you guys have anything like that that’s, that could, you know, like, hurt you guys if if any type of miss happens in the delivery date or time or anything like that? Yeah. Any kinds of quality escapes were impactful to both the customer and to us.

Yeah. Because we had to stop what we were doing and go take care of that that rejection, whether it it was because of, missing hardware or because of damage, or because we had not, met our delivery schedule. If we if we shipped 12 but they only received 11, you know, we had to, take actions to deliver an extra item Yep. Which was on our end. Right?

So it it would be it it was something that’s very, time consuming Yep. And very costly for us to to stop what we are doing, to go deliver an extra hood or, an extra, component to the, to the customer because of any kinds of escapes. Great. Great. So so now so the sole purpose of using load proof is to demonstrate that, hey.

Look at it. Right? All this product is perfectly shipped to you guys. That is the whole idea. Well, that was the genesis.

Genesis. Okay. You know, first, it is to to make sure that we, we performed the the specific actions that were called. Yep. Deliver 12 harvesters, you know, in, the crating material as requested by a certain time.

Yep. And we provided that evidence. It later evolved to, we delivered 12, and, we could provide evidence of the, the state that the material was in. Yep. You know, we could we could provide evidence that there was no scratches or there was no missing material.

Yep. And, that, you know, we could actually perform part of the inspection Yep. On camera to show that, you know, we had actually complied with the customer’s requirements. Great. Great.

Great. Perfect. So how did you guys find load proof to solve that problem? It was it it it becomes, you know, the you you say a a picture’s worth a 1,000 words, and and it’s absolutely correct. Yep.

Ever since our implementation of load proof Yep. You know, they the customer can can ask a question, and we can answer the question with, a picture. Yep. Hey. Here here is, a an image that was captured.

It’s got, you know, all the metadata attached to it that we need to be able to say where the material was at, at what time the material was there. And then, the evidence the the the picture evidence, showing that the, the material was in in the shape that that they expected. And therefore, either the damage happened in shipping Yep. Or it happened in house. Yep.

And ever since we’ve implemented the program, you know, we’ve been able to account for 100% of our, escapes, either by finding evidence that, you know, there, you know, there is no, there was no damage when it left us or, you know, that, you know, we could conclusively say, yes. We screwed up in this in this instance. Yeah. It’ll it helps us, improve our processes. Yep.

It helps, you know, build confidence in our processes that, you know, we’re operating, exactly the way that we’re supposed to be. Exactly. We’ve heard that many times. You know? Even though even though people started with, hey.

You know what? We wanna, you know, show, you know, how good of a job we are doing, and then they also found instances where, you know what? Hey. You know? For whatever reason, we did not do a great job.

We gotta improve ourselves too. And what that’s a that’s, you know, that’s a a good thing for for them. So so that’s an opportunity to improve themselves. And I can’t state enough how important it is to have that confidence built into the process, you know, where, you know, if they have a reported escape, you know, that the the question isn’t, you know, automatic and it you know, they they issue an escape Yep. Warrant to us.

They really pay that’s world class, industries. Yep. They’ve got a very high, level of quality. Are you sure Mhmm. Before we we issue an escape?

And and that helps, diminish, the the false negatives, that were issued to us, you know, that caused the customer and, world class industries to stop, do an investigation, when, you know, an investigation really wasn’t needed because there was some kind of an oversight. They thought that we only shipped 11, but in fact, the 12th one was off to the side and and they found it, when they did their second check. So having that confidence and and our ability to be able to provide that objective evidence very, very quickly. And we know, on both sides, right, that if you do something wrong, there’s going to be, you know, evidence, you know, in place to capture that, and they know it as well. So, you know, having that confidence is super important to us.

That’s awesome. Yeah. Being able to reduce the amount of issued Yep. You know, escape notices Yep. Really helps us focus Yep.

On where the problems really exist Yep. Versus, you know, hunting down, you know, false negatives. Exactly. You know, I mean, you know, it’s it’s it’s, when the customer is gonna think twice before they submit a claim or, you know, escape notice to you guys, you know, that is that is good to have. I mean and and they will feel good about it as well.

Hey. You know, we got this great partner. You know, let’s double check on our side before we tell them anything. And and obviously, right, I mean, all that time that you guys spend on investigating and then going back and saying, hey. Got you.

Look at it. Right? We did everything perfectly and here is the proof. And and all that time is really not producing any value for you guys. You would rather, you know, assemble more or, you know, ship more in that time that was spent on investigating and, you know, proving that, hey.

You know, we did our job right in the first place. Correct. You know, because once well, when we finish, you know, one assembly process, we initially essentially move to the next assembly, and and we’re we’re spaced out. And anytime we have to stop and perform the the investigation, it’s important that, you know, we do a good investigation. But the quickest the quicker that we can do that investigation, you know, the quicker we can move on to doing the things that we’re supposed to be doing.

So having that objective evidence that’s easy to retrieve Yep. That’s easy to understand and interpret and to share and communicate with a customer Yep. Means that our our the execution of our corrective actions is, you know, very, very, very fast. Sometimes almost in real time. Yep.

Yep. Great. Fantastic. You know, I mean, that’s the that’s the whole objective. So how was it how was it like, you know, before load proof?

So before load proof, we we, relied heavily on, our corrective action would be more inspection. Yeah. And if you spent any time in quality, you know that inspection essentially is waste. Yep. So you wanna be be able to have a process Yep.

That flows from start to to, to finish Yep. Without any interruptions to the process. Loadproof allows us to do that. Load loadproof allows us allows the process to continue Yep. While it does its work independently.

Yeah. And, we can have historical evidence to go back later when we have time to to perform, you know, a good investigation that provides objective evidence of, you know, where an issue may or may not, exist. You know, and it gets us out of a bad relationship with a customer. Because essentially, without that objective evidence, it’s our word against their word. Yeah.

Exactly. We say, hey. It left here Mhmm. And it was in perfect condition Mhmm. And and the right quantities.

And now the customer is saying, it got here. It’s damaged, and it’s the wrong quantities. You know, it allows us to to bypass that, that potential relationship, issue Mhmm. And just provide the evidence and you say, hey. Here’s, you know, here’s the file that contains, the the material in question.

Yeah. We will let you evaluate it, and you make the decision whether it was damaged, you know, here at WCI or whether, that damage happened someplace else. Got it. And And it allows them to focus quickly. Hey.

The problem isn’t with WCI. It’s with the, with the with the shipper. Yeah. Let’s go back to the shipper and find out. Yeah.

Or it it it really happened at our facility. Yeah. So the customer can go quickly into their facility and do some root cause corrective action and and correction, of an issue, as quickly as possible. Got it. So you folks don’t own the shipping function.

You only own the assembling function. That’s what and then somebody else, there is another party that takes all these goods and ships it to John Deere. Is that what the process is, current process is? Yeah. Well, I think it’s, it’s a little bit of both Okay.

Where the the customer sometimes does their own shipping. Yep. But sometimes, you know, the it it we use a third party, shipper, to move the material, and we’re highly fortunate because our facilities are close to each other. Yeah. So they’re not moving far away.

Far away. Okay. The customer can sometimes facilitate their own shipment. Yeah. But sometimes they use a third party, shipper as well.

Got it. Got it. Got it. And and, you know, so what is afterload proof like? You know, how is, you know, life gotten better?

You know, how is how is it better now? Yeah. I I you know, it’s certainly like I said, first of all, we get to safeguard our relationship Yep. With the customer. Yep.

We we provide a lot of, risk mitigation to our brand promise. Yep. And, you know, it’s a very, very fast Absolutely. Investigation. And we can move from investigation to corrective action when needed extremely fast and have real evidence of what’s missing.

So if if, you know, a a bolt is missing on the material that, you know, we can go right to that portion of the of the, process and, you know, make the necessary modifications to our process. So we can move from, a quality escape, you know, to a quality recovery Yep. And hours, you know, versus days or weeks. It helps in the investigation. Yep.

It also helps us when we do implement something, to have verification or validation of effectiveness. So we can look weeks after that Yep. Into the into the evidence and say, is it still being done this way? And we can look and say, yep. That bolt is consistently installed now.

We have a good root cause, and we had a good corrective action implemented. So it helps with our our, relationship with our customer, which has vastly improved. Yep. It helps with our relationship. It helps with our brand promise Yeah.

And safeguarding our branding. And it really helps with our internal investigations and more importantly with the validation of that effectiveness of that corrective action. Great. Great. Great.

Great. Fantastic. You know, could you share some examples on how load proof made your overall, you know, life better, operations better? You know, I mean, we have heard this multiple times in so many different ways. Hey.

The morale is better, so much better now. You know? We can pull out proofs and share it with our, you know, partners so quickly. And my guys are, like, you know, the I mean, you know, I’ve been to so many warehouses and I’ve seen so many operations. They take a lot of pride in doing their job.

Right? And when someone, you know, blames them for for things that they did not do or, you know, they did everything perfectly, just not a good good, you know, spot to be in. Right? Like that, you know, what are their you know, could you share some benefits that you guys have seen in your I I think the number one benefit that we’ve seen so far is scalability of of the of the, load proof, process where, you know, initially, we were using the the tool in, products that were at a certain, cost point. Yep.

And because, you know, we work, you know, it was kind of time consuming to, you know, to be able to to, capture the evidence and then, you know, have the evidence, loaded into the into the tool itself. Yeah. The better that we got at it Yep. You know, we were able to scale that technology and that, that process into product that was at lower cost points. Yeah.

And, you know, we wanted to have, you know, processes that were as similar as possible regardless if we were building a, you know, $100,000, harvester Yep. Or a $10 hood assembly Yep. That we could follow the same, process regardless of what it was. Yeah. This tool has allowed us to do that.

Mhmm. It it’s allowed us to, you know, use that same process. Yep. And our technicians function better when, you know, they have that repeatability in their processes. The same process I gotta do.

It doesn’t matter whether I’m building a hood or by I’m building a harvester or I’m doing it in inbound. I’m doing an outbound. I’m doing, you know, some kind of a process improvement. It just makes life so much easier because, yeah, I know. I know.

You know, all I have to do is execute these 3 steps, 4 steps. Right? Great. Exactly. Great.

Great. Fantastic. Everybody’s happier that way for sure. For sure. Yes.

Yes. Yes. You know, at a very high level, right, how much was the, you know, dollar savings? You know, just a very high level, you know, number if you could place, you know. You know, I I I’m not sure if and I I didn’t do a lot of work to prepare, you know, an exact dollar fitting, You know?

But I gotta tell you that, you know, you can’t really put a dollar figure on, that the relationship Yeah. A portion of that because, you know, John Deere was a very important customer to us. Yep. And they historically, you know, they they have been a key customer to us. Yep.

And, you know, being able to, safeguard that relationship Yep. You know, is is vastly important. I the the other one is, you know, our brand. You know? I mean, you know, we you know, one of our core values is, you know, our flexibility with the customer.

Yep. You know, we wanna move swiftly Yep. And be able to solve problems, or go from request to fulfillment of a of a request. You know, and and I I’m not really sure that I can put a dollar figure on that, but it it’s significant, and helping us, to safeguard that relationship and really, improve that relationship with us, with with John Deere, which is one of our biggest customers Yeah. You know, down to some of our smaller customers Exactly.

That, you know, some people may not be, you know, why are you even paying attention to us? All our customers are important to us. Yep. And we wanna make sure that we give that same level of of care Yep. And sophistication to our biggest customer and our smallest customer.

Exactly. I mean, you know, that is our goal as well. I mean, you know, we want you to, you know, build more, you know, business. I mean, right? I mean, obviously, when you guys I know when they understand, hey.

WCI is such a, you know, a trustworthy partner for us. You know, we we know when there is a, even more important task that comes up, even more sensitive, assembly component that needs to be built, you know, the first brand that, you know, you you guys want them to think about is, you know, obviously, WCI. Right? That is that is super important, and and it helps, you know, maintain that, brand value and the, you know, commitment to the quality and commitment to the job well done. You know?

That is that is super super important. And and honestly, you know, beyond that, you know, when we talk about, you know, just dollars and cents, when we’re talking about a a harvester that we’re assembling for, John Deere that fits on the front of one of one of their tractors, it honestly takes one occurrence, you know, where they they think that there’s been, you know, an assembly, error and that, and we would have to stop what we’re doing, go and and pick up that that harvester, bring it back to our facility Yep. You know, break it down, you know, and and take care of that that issue. Yep. With one assurance, you know you know, we we have covered our costs.

Yeah. You know, no less that our customer has that that confidence that, you know, they don’t even ask us. They you know, what the issue was. They quickly moved to, can you provide us a picture of what that that that, that harvester looked like when it left your facility Wow. Because they know they’re going to get the objective evidence that’s empirical in nature Yep.

And be able to say, you know, it’s is it is it WCI’s issue? Yep. Is it, case’s issue? Is it the shipper’s issue? Yep.

And move to resolution, you know, and and, in a heartbeat. Great. Great. Fantastic. Fantastic.

You know? And and how difficult was it to implement load proof? Right? I mean, you know, it’s it’s usually in 2 aspects. 1 is, you know, from a systemic perspective, from a technical perspective, you know, turning on the technology itself, how difficult was it?

And then, right, how difficult was it to get the, users to adapt to it. Right? I mean, usually, you know you know how the users are there. Like, hey. We have never done this.

You know, why the heck we have to do it now? Right? They know the change management is all there and, you know, we’re all humans. I mean, you know, we are perfectly fine with whatever we’ve been doing all along. You know, we like the routine and and we process change.

You know, how did you guys work through the technical challenge of implementation as well as the, you know, human challenge of, you know yeah. Very few technical challenges. The the software is very, very straightforward. You know, the the I I think the the the area that we had the highest degree of of difficulty in implementation is is in standardizing the process. Yeah.

You know, at what point, you know, do we, establish photographic evidence? Yep. What, you know, what angle do we take, you know, so we have this repeatable process Yep. Ensuring that, you know, it’s not random, that, you know, we’re not going to take 3 pictures of this thing, that we take 3 pictures Yep. At this state Yep.

You know, and and this part of the process Yep. From this angle. That was the most difficult thing to do. Okay. And it was as you mentioned, it really was just, you know, developing some muscle memory in our in our process.

Yeah. Every it it’s it’s difficult to implement change. Yep. Right? Yep.

You know, we went probably overload Yeah. On, you know, communicating with our employees to make sure Great. That, you know, we weren’t, you know, trying to implement something to watch them. Yep. You know, we were watching the product.

Yep. And we were, you know, safeguarding, their high level of of, you know All the all the, you know, adherence to quality, they do. I mean, you know, so it Yeah. Typically, what we have seen is once they realize, oh my god. You know what?

It’s gonna protect me as well. You know? Because because, you know, we did a great job, and tomorrow’s when someone comes and blames us. You know? We can pull this and show, hey, guys.

No. It’s not accurate. No. We did our job right. And and, typically, when that realization happens, they they embrace it pretty well.

Yeah. We wanted to take you know, honestly, we wanted them to take credit for, you know, their high level of quality. Hey. This is fracking rights for us, guys. Yeah.

You know, because and and, you know, we didn’t you know, when it comes down to a, you know, he said, she said situation and, you know, he’s the customer and she’s the the the service or product provider Yep. You know, we’re never on the winning end of that conversation. Yep. So we really wanted to set, you know, set up a process so that it’s a win win. Yep.

You know, the customer gets what they need. Yep. You know, we get the assurance that, you know, when we ship something Yep. And we say it’s deliverable that it it’s, you know, at that high level of, readiness. I love the bragging rights phrase.

That is true. I mean, that’s true. You know what? You know, we can oh, guys, you know, we did our job right. Look at it.

No. We we get to brag on that. No. We worked hard, and we deserve it. Right.

Right. And, you know, it it, you know, you you assemble something over and over and over. Correct? Yep. You know, and and, you know, it’s it, you know, it’s not just, you know, having a a robust process that, you know, can have that reproducibility built into it.

Yep. You know? But, you know, when you interject a human into that process, that human has to be able to interact with that process. And it it’s not easy. Yep.

It’s easy for me to sit back and and put together a process Correct. That says, you know, here’s step a and here’s step z and, you know, all you have to do is complete those in that step. You know? Yep. Really, it has to be a a, a good, you know, melting Land of yeah.

What anyone can do and what the process wants to Exactly. Wants to have as an output. Exactly. Exactly. Great.

Very well put. So were you able to implement any best practices you guys thought, hey. You know, I I wasn’t able to implement before, but after load proof, you know, we were able to implement some of these best practices, and that worked out pretty well. You know, I I I think that’s probably one of the things that I’m most excited about in the load proof process is, the evolution of the software Yeah. And the implementation of, you know, the process, you know, that you know, hey.

You know, we’ve run into a technical issue, you know, because you know, of how we go from actually taking the picture to loading the picture Yep. And to retrieving the picture. Yep. You know, I think that’s been one of the the the most positive things about our relationship with Loadproof is being able to work through Yeah. Those minor, you know, glitches that could, you know, blossom into a big problem.

You know? Because if you take the time, you know, to implement the process and you capture, the images the way you’re supposed to. But then when you’re, asked to provide that evidence, if you can’t quickly come up with that solution Yep. You know, you you you know, you and and that’s what the customer is wanting to do is to quickly, resolve the issue. Yep.

You know, it can be the best, you know, picture in the world of exactly what you if you can’t retrieve it when it needs to be retrieved Yep. It it it’s almost worthless to you. Correct. Correct. Absolutely.

Yep. Yep. You know, so having the ability to to, you know, ask Yep. You know, about a certain capability and having a rapid response from load proof on how, you know, we can either, change our processes, or or change our practices Yep. To to having more suitable, output.

I think that’s been the best part of this relationship that we’ve we’ve gone through. I don’t think, in in my memory, I I can’t think of a time where, you know, we have gone to, you know, technical support and asked for help on an issue Yep. That that issue that there hasn’t been somebody, willing to help us from a, you know, a technical support perspective Yep. From Loadproof Yep. Or or that we didn’t get an a solution to our technical problem, that didn’t suit our needs.

You know? Yeah. In quality, everybody hates workarounds. Right? Well Yeah.

And, you know, if you kinda do this and you kinda do that, you kinda get what you want. You know, when we gave you a specific problem Yep. You provided a a, a defined solution Yep. That would meet our needs and, you know, in the end, the process was was better. Yeah.

Exactly. That’s what that’s what we strive to do. I I just wanna also let you know, now, you know, there is another app called load proof viewer app. So you can look up photos right from your mobile device. Correct.

Right? You don’t have to, you know, go to the browser all the time, especially, right, in time sensitive situations like that. You know, you guys can install that app in your mobile device and you can pull photos, you know, right in your mobile device. You know, it’s available Yeah. And and being able to propagate that, you know.

So not just one person was responsible for that. You know? Anybody in the process could pull that up. Exactly. If they had a doubt Exactly.

That perhaps, oh my gosh. I think I forgot. You know? I have a screw left over. Where does this come from?

Yep. You know, for the technicians to be able to, you know, to look at those photos and go Yep. It’s still sitting on the shop floor. I can go over there and and, you know, fix that. You know, you you, again, you can’t put a price on that.

Right? Because Yeah. You know, what we want to do, is we wanna be less reactive and more proactive. Yeah. Yeah.

So we have done where we’ve done quality checks on our own and a spot check just to see how are we doing. Yeah. And the video evidence is there. So, you know, the quality personnel can access that. The, you know, the shop foreman can, can access that, and, you know, and company leadership can access that.

Yep. And you can access that whether you’re here in Hiawatha or whether we’re in Des Moines, Iowa or, Crystal Lake, Illinois, wherever the the the, the software, is is or wherever the the services is taken up, it’s it’s global globally available. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, is there anything else that you would like to share about Loadproof that, you know, that you thought just stood out for for you guys?

You know, you know, it it it’s a it’s a really cool story, you know, the relationship between WCI and, Loadproof, you know, because this started from you know, somebody saw a comment on LinkedIn about the the capabilities of the of of the the the technology. Yeah. And, you know, came back to to work with an idea. Yeah. And, you know, we contacted Loadproof.

You know, Loadproof, you know, did a demonstration of capability. We did a proof of concept, and, you know, it it worked out spectacularly Yeah. You know, where we were able to move from an idea that a employee had Yeah. Yeah. To the implementation of a solution Yeah.

That the company needed. Yeah. And it meets everybody’s needs. You know, load proof, we know is a is a growing company Yeah. And acquiring technologies and capabilities, and, you know, sharing that with with us.

So, you know, we expect that, the technology is gonna get better Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Improve and, evolve. Yep.

And, you know, what we’re seeing is as we as a company are evolving Yep. Load proof is evolving. Absolutely. Yep. You know, when we say, hey.

We’re looking for this technology. Oh, guess what? We we’re already working on that technology. Yep. WCI.

Let’s send you a little bit of information about this. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we are we need scalable solutions Yes. Because sometimes our products are very big.

Yep. You know, and sometimes our products are very small. We produce Yeah. Toolboxes that go in in, skid loaders that are, you know, the size of a lunch pail. Yep.

And they can be just as problematic as, you know, the big harvesters. Yep. You know, so the solution is scalable to size. It’s scalable to, to, you know, cost. Yep.

And, you know, we’re we’re we’re very satisfied with it. Great. Fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you very much.

And we are always you know, we are all ears. You know, whenever you guys, you know, come have a new idea, hey. We wanna think about this, talk about this, you know, try this. You know, we are all ears, and we are open for any type of collaboration. Right?

That is always there. And and would you recommend load proof to someone that is in a similar, you know, shoes like yourself? Not to any of my competitors. You know, I I’m a I’m a quality manager. Yeah.

Correct? Yep. And we are a very tight community of of professionals, and we share ideas. Yep. You know, we share where things are going really, really well.

Yep. We also share where things aren’t going really, really well. Yep. And when we get together as a in a community, whether it’s a on an on, you know, on a blog site or whether we’re at a a a conference, I have already recommended, Loadproof to so many of my friends Oh, great. And colleagues that have the same problem, whether it’s in the aerospace industry, whether it’s, you know, in the medical devices, whether it’s, you know, in agriculture and construction, what have you.

You know, quality is quality is quality. Yep. And it’s all about being able to provide fast, objective evidence, you know, very, very quickly. Yep. And, you know, I have and I will continue Great.

To to, praise this this this product as a as an important component of our quality management system. Great. Fantastic. Fantastic. I mean, thank you very much for the time, Jim.

This means a lot. You know, this is what we I mean, it’s literally blood, sweat, and tears, you know, building the product and building the company, you know, and and we are yep. We are here to partner with you guys. You know, and I and I think, you know, our DNA is the same. Right?

Because we we too started as a very, very small company with a lot of good ideas, you know, and and, we we have grown. And, you know, we we, you know, we had very specific products that we worked for, very specific customers, you know, and we’re expanding beyond those. And, you know, every day, you know, we we find we find, you know, new areas that we’re going to work. And we we we got there by having good relationships with our customers, and and I think that’s what we appreciate. That’s why I say Yep.

We share our, you know, DNA Yep. Because you are, you are considerate of your customers. Yep. Absolutely. And you’re smart enough to know that, you know, some of the best ideas come directly from customers.

Absolutely. Absolutely. No. That’s what that’s what we we we have to do and we do, listen to your customers. I mean, that’s where everything starts, you know, and Yeah.

Focus on the pain and solve that pain and, you know, we solve that. We do a great job at solving that pain and we all win together. I mean, that’s what at the end of the day matters. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And and, you know, we you know, we’re you know, one of my we just set my annual goals for, you know, for for 2025. And one of the things that my boss, you know, told me to go and do in 2025 is to find how we can spread the goodness, you know, the the best practices of, load proof, you know, throughout the company. Yeah.

You know, and and, you know, and and not just in in the the germane of of, you know, product readiness. Yep. You know? But how else we can do, you know, quality. Right?

Because that’s that’s a delivery that we’re we’re kind of using load proof. But what about, you know, during the the component testing? Yep. You know? Yep.

Is there value Yep. When we when we load a component and, you know, we have, it run it run it’s electro continuity checks and we get a green light on the screen? Yep. What would be the value of being able to, you know, to take a snapshot of that? Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. And and it’s a little teeny tiny little bit of data Yep. That we can store away Yep. You know, for for better traceability of our compliance to to requirements later.

Absolutely. I mean, we are all years. I mean, you know, we are all years and, you know, we’ll be happy to collaborate and help you folks in any way possible to build such solutions. Absolutely. Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I’m looking forward to it. You know?

Yeah. You know, I like everything. Yep. You know? I I I want there to be, you know, the same level, you know, to have the same repeatability in our processes.

But I know that that, you know, it’s got a limiting factor. There’s a point of diminishing returns. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You can’t take a picture of everything. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah. You don’t wanna overdo it. Yeah. Think that there’s a lot of opportunity. Yep.

I know that you know that. Yep. You know, in you know, right now, one of our, you know, I guess, if I would say, areas of concern are that it still requires, you know, my technician to take a picture. Yeah. You know?

Automate that. Yeah. I am a believer in automation. Absolutely. Absolutely.

That, you know, I I’m looking forward for for more automation to be, implemented into that into that. Absolutely. That technology. Yeah. And and, you know, let us know.

Hey. You know? If there is any specific configuration, any specific, you know, way that you would like to automate it, you know, let us know, and we’ll be happy to, you know, incorporate that as well. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it’s not it’s not actually a super complex. You know, it doesn’t have to be always all the robotics and, you know, you know, fully automated stuff, but simple things that we can do that that and, you know, that that makes it so much better.

You know? We can we are we are always ears to, you know, collaborate and, you know, work together and and build such solutions for you guys. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

I, you know, I I have a, you know, a a an ethos that I I kind of follow. Yeah. And and, you know, I I think, you know, if if you if, you know, training is very important to our employees and and developing a good strong workforce. Right? Yep.

If I tell them about something Yep. I think that, you know, they’re liable to forget about it. Right? Yep. If I show them Yep.

You know, they remember it. Yes. You know? So sometimes we can use that video evidence Yep. You know, to show, hey.

Look. You do every once in a while, leave this bolt out. Yeah. But the most important part of that ethos really is if I involve them Yep. Yep.

Yep. Then they understand the process. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yep. You know? So Absolutely. And and that’s, I think, the next, you know, iteration Yeah. Of how we’re going to make, load proof a a a more valuable tool to our enterprise.

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Fantastic. I mean, thank you very much for, you know, giving such a detailed, you know, what do you call, right, all the initiatives that you guys are looking at and in terms of, you know, how you have, how load proof has worked out for us and worked out for you guys.

Right? And and we are happy to be a, you know, partner in that, endeavor, you know, engagement as well. And and You’re an important partner to us for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And and we are here. Right? Anything you guys need, you know, reach out to us and we are here for you and, you know, we’ll we’ll deliver on all those, you know, promises that we have made and and, you know, that’s all that’s all we’ve gotten this big as well. I mean, we got, like Well, you guys continue to impress me with your willingness to, you know, to partner with us, and I appreciate that.

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you very much for the time, Jean. Thank you.

You, sir. Have a great day. You too. Thank you. Mhmm.

Bye.