Okuma & Fastems: Maximizing Machine Use

In episode 19 of Shop Matters, join host Wade Anderson and guest, Bob Baldizzi, as they discuss Fastems, maximizing machine use, and flexible manufacturing systems (FMS).



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TRANSCRIPTION

Wade Anderson:

Hey, manufacturing world. This is Wade Anderson with Shop Matters, sponsored by Okuma. This podcast is intended to talk about all things manufacturing-related. Joining me in the studio today I've got a longtime friend, Mr. Bob Baldizzi with Fastems. Welcome, Bob.

Bob Baldizzi:

Hey, welcome Wade. Thanks for having me. Appreciate the offer to be here.

Wade Anderson:

Absolutely. I appreciate you coming and joining us. So tell us a little bit about Bob Baldizzi to start with.

Bob Baldizzi:

Oh, boy. You start with the most boring topic, but I've been kicking around manufacturing for quite a while. Most of my background is in the machine tools side, whether it was servicing or applications or selling. Just recently moved over to Fastems and factory automation only because I really see a future there. I think that's where this industry is moving towards. Things like Industry 4.0 and getting the most amount of data out of your manufacturing cells is the future for manufacturing. So happy I made the move and look forward to talking about it.

Wade Anderson:

All right. So tell us, you kind of opened the door right to it.

Bob Baldizzi:

Yep.

Wade Anderson:

So tell us a little bit about Fastems, who is Fastems as a company, and what's your core strength?

Bob Baldizzi:

Well, sure. Well, from the very beginning, Fastems as a company is actually started in 1901. And obviously we weren't making FMSs at the time, but our core competency was importing machines and distribution of machines.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

And did that for quite a number of years under various names, other than Fastems. An old friend of mine told me a long time ago that markets make business and our leadership at the time in the early '80s now, started looking at what turned into FMS. And in 1982, we started and produced our first FMS system, which oh, by the way, 38 years later is still running.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

So from that point, till now of that is really where we've focused on. To me, the terminology FMS is kind of a bucket.

Wade Anderson:

So define that. We use that a lot. Everybody from, especially on the Okuma side of things. FMS, we know exactly what that means, but just in case people out there don't, what is the FMS?

Bob Baldizzi:

Well, FMS really stands for flexible manufacturing system. So it's the ability to feed a metal cutting machine various parts at various times on demand.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

Over and above the standard capabilities of the machine tool.

Wade Anderson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bob Baldizzi:

So that's really where we focus on. But Fastems as a company also has a wide portfolio of products besides the typical FMS. So whether, it's load handling robotic arm in front of a lathe to robotic finishing cells, to robots on the rail that can access various different types of machines, whether they're machine tools or wash machines or CMMs. That's what we do.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. So I always like your logo, 8760.

Bob Baldizzi:

8760.

Wade Anderson:

8760. What does that mean?

Bob Baldizzi:

Yeah, that's the question I get everywhere I go. What in the world does that mean?

Wade Anderson:

What is 8760 Fastems?

Bob Baldizzi:

Well, sometimes I think it's our combined IQ, because we've got a lot of talented guys, not including myself, but 8760 is the number of hours in a year. And our goal is to help your company enhance their spindle utilization and capability to maximize the number of hours that that machine is running.

Wade Anderson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bob Baldizzi:

And ultimately the goal is 8760, somewhat impossible with maintenance and things of that nature, but always a goal.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah. I think that's an important thing to distinguish is the goal. Obviously we both know Larry Schwartz [former Okuma America President & C.O.O.] really well. And many years ago, Larry gave a riveting presentation, big speech, and he talked about how every manufacturer should have a goal of zero downtime, change over time. Sorry. So where most people are looking at change over time and hours or at least in minutes. He's saying your goal should be zero and people, "That's impossible. You can never get there." Yeah, but just think if that's your goal, how close can you get? The single minute exchange of dies, that whole concept. People thought that was outlandish back in the day. And now they change dies out in seconds. So if you don't have that goal of virtually zero, you're never going to know what could you actually accomplish.

Bob Baldizzi:

Yeah. And that's an interesting point Wade, because it brings us to where we are now with current manufacturing with CNC machining centers, whether it's a vertical or a horizontal or whatever it is. Each one of them brings with it an average spindle utilization time.

Wade Anderson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bob Baldizzi:

There are some people that are quite shocked about how low they actually are.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah.

Bob Baldizzi:

Industry standards for vertical is in the 30s, 30% spindle utilization, with a horizontal you're doing good, if you're at 65, even though you have the ability to load and unload while the machine is running. People just don't have the infrastructure to maintain that. There's always something in the way of that operator making that happen.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah.

Bob Baldizzi:

And sometimes I get into these compelling discussions with end users, "No, that's no way, it's that low. We've got this horizontal and it does everything." And then they start doing some research, all these controls, including the OSP, which really pioneered it of giving you Mac machine management type or as you call Mac-Man.

Wade Anderson:

Mac-Man, yeah.

Bob Baldizzi:

Yeah. Information and they go, and they look at that screen, they go, "Oh, wow. Yeah, we really suck."

Wade Anderson:

And we're not where we thought we were.

Bob Baldizzi:

Exactly. And then that brings up where Fastems comes to the table.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah. Okay. So I've always known Fastems, primarily you always think about how certain words put an image in your head. So a lot of times people when you hear the word Okuma, you kind of think lathe. That was kind of what our bread and butter was early on. Even though now we sell 51% mills versus lathes. But when I think Fastems, I think rows of horizontals on a big rack system. What is your bread and butter? What's your core competency? What's the bulk of what you do.

Bob Baldizzi:

Yeah. That's an interesting question. And yeah, I tend to agree with you that people would associate Fastems with some box with some pallet storage in front of a bunch of horizontals. And we do that and we do that well, and that's a common product for us.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Bob Baldizzi:

But what we're seeing now in the last several years is manufacturers looking outside of that box, so to speak. Saying, "That's all well and good, but we have a product." Maybe it's a rotating aerospace component or something of that nature and it gets machined. And then it goes out for some other type of process and it comes back in and then there's another process. And then it gets washed and then it gets checked. And a typical box with pallets on it doesn't necessarily achieve those goals. So we're getting a lot of inquiries from larger companies who have products like that and say, "How can we manage that part from cradle to grave when the forging comes in the door to when it leaves and goes out to that engine manufacturer?" Just as an example.

Wade Anderson:

So how do I make my flexible manufacturing system more flexible?

Bob Baldizzi:

Exactly. Exactly. And they're more interested in tracking it, which brings to mind Industry 4.0. And being able to get the data about that part in any given moment throughout the process.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

So we are creating systems that can do just that now. That incorporate tool management, that incorporate wash stations, CMM stations. Can track the part, even when it leaves the cell, and then when it comes back and then send all that data back to the customer's ERP system.

Wade Anderson:

Wow.

Bob Baldizzi:

So it's getting a bit more complex.

Wade Anderson:

So it's much more integrated than just automation on the factory floor. It's automating the entire process.

Bob Baldizzi:

Exactly. Exactly. Now, we still love our bread and butter customers who want to have a series of pallets at their beck and call and just bring them in and take them out whenever they need to. And customers want to do that for two reasons really. One is for maybe overnight manufacturing. They want to get that spindle utilization. They want to get that one operator, but three shifts savings.

Wade Anderson:

Yep.

Bob Baldizzi:

Or we have guys who just want to have on demand. They want to be agile enough for their customer to be able to create a part and ship it in a small amount of time. So we have customers who will just put their fixtures up on our system, for on demand.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

So when that demand comes, our software sees a need for that part number, it associates the program, the tooling, the fixture, everything, and then brings that fixture to the load station. And then the operator takes care of the rest.

Wade Anderson:

So eliminating a lot of your change over time.

Bob Baldizzi:

Exactly.

Wade Anderson:

So if you just had a 2APC standing there by itself, you'd be stripping a pallet, a fixture off of the machine, resetting it up. And this way, you're setting it up one time, then putting it into the system, then having a recall of it, whenever that job comes back around.

Bob Baldizzi:

Exactly. And that's where we start getting higher and closer to that 8760.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

Yeah.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah. Very interesting. So I always think in terms of, again, horizontals, horizontal machining centers, pallets tied into things, but you mentioned you're doing a lot more than just horizontals. You're looking at 5-axis, verticals, lathes things of that nature. Touch on a little bit of that on what type of products would you address if I'm looking at a 5-axis machine for an example, what products would I be looking at that would be feeding multiple 5-axis machines instead of a traditional horizontal type setup?

Bob Baldizzi:

Yeah. That's again, a good point. As a machine tool guy, you know where the growth is, as far as machine tools are concerned and that's multifunction lathes and 5-axis machining centers. Those are the two single largest areas of growth. Always a need for a vertical, always a need for a horizontal, but people are starting to see that being able to process as much of the part as possible in one clamping is the way to go.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah.

Bob Baldizzi:

So we've adjusted along with that. So with that, we've developed a product that we call RoboFMS, and it's a robot on a rail and it runs back and forth in a linear fashion in front of these machines. We have machines on both sides or all four sides, depending on your configuration.

Wade Anderson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bob Baldizzi:

And instead of the traditional horizontal machining pallet, we'll use a zero point pallet, zero point-style pallet from various manufacturers. And that robot will grip on to that zero point pallet and shuttle that anywhere it needs to be. So that would be for a 5-axis application.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

Believe it or not, we have systems that incorporate both. So we have gripper changes in midstream. So now we can grab and actually do part handling with that robot. So we go from zero-point fixture, park that, change to a gripper that now can grab a part, and then literally load that part into a multi-function lathe.

Wade Anderson:

Right. So a good application of that, we've got customers that use horizontals for roughing, for an example. So maybe it's a titanium part and they're hogging 40 cubes of titanium a minute and 6K spindle, a 1,000 Newton meter torque, and just hogging material out of it. Then they'll take that, move the roughed out part over to the 5-axis, where that's more high-speed, agile. Get to more sides of the part and do all the finishing work on the 5-axis. So then you're not trying to stuff all the operations into one machine, you've got different machines that are dedicated for different processes, but you're feeding both of them.

Bob Baldizzi:

Yep, exactly. Right. And one step further that roughing machine could be a vertical, because again, we were using zero-point fixturing.

Wade Anderson:

Yep.

Bob Baldizzi:

So you could have maybe a little bit less of investment on the machine tool, or just bulk it up with spindle and capability for that roughing, without having the need for the pallet changer and things of that nature. And then move that along through the process.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

And our software keeps track of all that. We develop a route for the part and say, "You start here, go there, go there, and then come back."

Wade Anderson:

Yeah.

Bob Baldizzi:

And that route, obviously never changes because that's the part process. And that's tied to the program, it's tied to the tooling, tied to the part number, ultimately.

Wade Anderson:

So when I think of machining centers, if I'm going to automate it, a lot of times, my head goes to redundancy. And I need to have more capability than what I really need for one part, both to have a library, to be able to pull from, but also have, if a tool breaks have more tools, redundant tools to pull from. So if I buy a horizontal that somewhat locked in time, maybe I bought a horizontal, begin with a small ATC on it. Then I want to look at adding an FMS system, something with multiple pallets. And now I need more redundant tools. A lot of times we start speccing machines around having maximum ATC capacity, putting big matrix magazines. It's got multi-hundred tools systems on it. You guys have ability to approach that from a different avenue, right?

Bob Baldizzi:

Yes, we do. We have two products and basically it amounts to a central tool storage hive.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

So depending on the density of the tools required, there's two different products. But in essence, we have a separate library where we can store these tools and we utilize a robot or robots depending on the product to shuttle these tools from our central tool library to wherever it's needed, to whatever machine it's needed. So there's a rail above these machines with a robot that comes around and then tucks into the machines tool changer. Takes tools out, pulls tools in. The beauty of this whole thing is our software keeps track of all the tools on a global basis, every tool that's in the machines, every tool that's in our library.

Wade Anderson:

Oh, wow.

Bob Baldizzi:

And then we poll the tool life management of every machine. So we're looking at the tool life of each individual tool within that system. So when a tool is getting to the end of its tool life, in conjunction with the machine's tool life management, we'll ask that a sister tool be used for that particular part. And we'll take that first tool and shuttle it back to our system. And it'll go into an area, into a little tray or a little cart that's signified as no good.

Wade Anderson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bob Baldizzi:

And then those tools now can be shuttled to the customer’s tool exchange area, where maybe his presetter is and where his insert library is. And now this individual could be refreshing those tools, those tools come back in. Their tool life is reset. And now they're back into the mix again. So we manage all of that through our software.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

So it's really been a major change or an evolution in FMS, because like I said earlier, aerospace applications are really looking at FMS. And there's a lot of hard metal in aerospace and subsequently there's these five- or six- minute tool lives, which are just unmanageable when you have a small individual ATC per machine.

Wade Anderson:

Sure. So that gives you the opportunity to maybe take a machine that's got a smaller ATC. Typically, that's less expensive or redeploy a machine that you've already got instead of buying another machine and adding a giant ATC onto it. Going this route would give you some more flexibility from that capacity. As you mentioned tools expiring and things of that nature. What happens if I am in the middle of a cutting process and I've gone through three or four tools and I'm in the middle of a big, heavy cut and my Caron TMAC’s telling me, "Hey, this tool is starting to go." And I'm out of redundant tools. Are you able to handle those kinds of processes?

Bob Baldizzi:

Yeah. Well, I mean, at that point when we don't have anything else to put into the machine, then of course, the process is going to stop.

Wade Anderson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bob Baldizzi:

The beauty of this though, is because it's managed in one place. You can start looking at your tool mix at a 40,000 foot level and start tooling up to prevent things like that from happening. And that's where the ATC on the machine comes into play. That's where you want to put your sister tools that will be wearing out quickly and making sure that tool changer is populated with that. The other thing about this is that just like our part management or our program management, with tool management, we're looking days in advance. In some cases, 48, 96 hours in advance, because we know the schedule of what this FMS is going to see.

Wade Anderson:

So you're in the planning stages.

Bob Baldizzi:

Always in the planning stages.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

And we are prompting the operators, whether it's the operator in front of our system or the operator that's in the tool room, that's looking at an auxiliary screen, that's showing the master tool list. He sees and gets prompted very early on that hey, that tool is not going to make it. And by Tuesday-

Wade Anderson:

Three days from now, you're going to have a problem.

Bob Baldizzi:

Right.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

So now he can be proactive instead of being reactive. Again, that's the philosophy here is to be proactive ultimately, keeps that spindle running.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah.

Bob Baldizzi:

And back to that 8760.

Wade Anderson:

Yep. There you go. Keeps tying back in doesn't it?

Bob Baldizzi:

That's right? Yeah, it sure does. It sure does.

Wade Anderson:

All right. So you talked a little bit about Industry 4.0, define that for Fastems. From a customer's perspective, look at it, if you're the shop owner or the production manager, what is Industry 4.0 going to do for me?

Bob Baldizzi:

Yeah. Well, I know you've heard this phrase before, but when you have a shop full of CNCs, you have these islands of information. There's a lot of information in there, but tough to get that information out.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah.

Bob Baldizzi:

Tough to use that information and cross it between machining centers, for example. With our MMS software, all the machines are known to each other. All the data that comes from the machines is known to us. So we know when there's an error that's occurring, we know the amount of spindle hours that each machine has in front of it. We can schedule downtime for preventative maintenance and things of that nature. And of course, we know the customer's needs, the manufacturing needs, what their schedule is, how many parts they need when they need it. And so all that data now, is available to our customers by reports.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

So we can provide customized reports to our customers that show them exactly what's going on within the system. Everything that we're working on, what the machines are working on. How many spindle hours each machine has and what the percentage of the work is done at any given time. And then that gets fed back to their system, so they have data on all the parts that are on the floor without having some guy with a clipboard running around trying to find them.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Bob Baldizzi:

We find that to be an appealing thing for our customers. They love data. They want to see what's going on. We can swamp them with data with like the best of them, but it's customized.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah.

Bob Baldizzi:

Give them as much as they want or as little as they want. And then we also utilize screens like this, that we can attach anywhere with predefined, what we call widgets.

Wade Anderson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bob Baldizzi:

That just give on the fly data, as far as what the system is doing.

Wade Anderson:

So what's important to your manufacturing process at that moment in time, so you could define that based on their needs?

Bob Baldizzi:

Yep.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Bob Baldizzi:

So we've got customers that use as a rally point during shift changes. They'll take a look and say, "Wow, the second shift beat the first shift out, we've got to do better." That type of thing or just some pertinent data that helps them during their shift meetings.

Wade Anderson:

Sure.

Bob Baldizzi:

So that's tying all that data together and providing it to our customers in a package that's useful to them. To us, that's what Industry 4.0 means.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. That's something I think is important is to be able to package it based on the customer's needs. We talk about the ... You just mentioned the OSP-P control. We can pull roughly 9,000 data points off that machine tool. Any Okuma machine with a P Series control, there's more data at your fingertips than you really know what to do with. And it's great, you can throw big numbers like that out, but what really matters, might be four data points. So the other 8,000 and some change doesn't really matter, but there's four that could really affect your future. And those are the ones that you really want to focus your time and attention on.

Bob Baldizzi:

Exactly. And that's the catering to the data is the key.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah.

Bob Baldizzi:

I remember, the early days of mining those data points and we had ... I remember Okuma customers who wanted everything and the data dump was just astronomical. There was no way any human could go through that and make any sense to all those data points. And that's the point you're making. So with any system like that, we help our customers decide what's important for their application and pull those together and let them at it.

Wade Anderson:

All right. So if I am a customer looking at a machine and I want to look into an FMS system, what considerations do I need to account for? What should I be thinking about before I jump into a system like that?

Bob Baldizzi:

I'll tell you, there's two answers. There's an A and B to that question. The first or the easiest part is what do you need to do to the machine tool?

Wade Anderson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bob Baldizzi:

So virtually every one of our partners has some sort of software to interface with an FMS system.

Wade Anderson:

Software and electrical interface.

Bob Baldizzi:

Yeah, and Okuma's has been very robust for a very long time. There is no mystery to it. It's a matter of clicking off a couple of things on the option list and away we go, and depending on our product, there may be some hardware that has to change, but relatively speaking, it's all understandable. And like I said, a couple of clicks off the old option list. From a holistic point of view, this is a conversation I have with my customers all the time is, you have to feed the beast.

Wade Anderson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bob Baldizzi:

Now, here's something that's going to take you from using the old horizontal parlance of 65% spindle utilization to well into the 80s and beyond. You have to work on your infrastructure in order to feed this thing at that speed, otherwise you'll have some disappointments. Our system is guaranteed 96% utilization right out of the box.

Wade Anderson:

That's impressive.

Bob Baldizzi:

But if you can't feed the thing, you never get there. So the reality is, is what can you do in order to bulk up your ERP system, bulk up your production documents, bulk up your material, your inbound material flow, your outbound material flow? So we're in between all those things. So we need to make sure that everything coming in and coming out is as smooth as it can be. And then once that happens, then these things just run and run and run. And then you start seeing that high spindle utilization.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Bob Baldizzi:

It's a process.

Wade Anderson:

So it's really having your environment right up front.

Bob Baldizzi:

Yep.

Wade Anderson:

I talk about that a lot with automation in general, not just FMS type system, but automation in general. All the pre-planning, all the work to me really starts in the pre-planning phase. By the time it hits that spindle and that machine tool you're executing. You're executing what you did upstream.

Bob Baldizzi:

Right.

Wade Anderson:

Very good.

Bob Baldizzi:

Yeah. Yeah. We've got a lot of experience with that. Our regional guys are all for the most part ex-machine tool guys. So they know the ins and outs of manufacturing. We know the ins and outs of obviously automation and FMS. So we act as a guide to help customers understand some of the changes that they may have to make in order to get the most success out of these things.

Wade Anderson:

Right. Where do you see the future? I always like to ask everybody that comes on this thing, what's here, what's now? And what do you see in the next 5, 10 years? Where do you think machine tool, not just machine tool, where do you see manufacturing is going to take us in the next 5 to 10 years?

Bob Baldizzi:

Yeah. That's a wild one. It's interesting, just in the last 10 years, the strides that we've gone to get to the point we are now. To me, it just seems that it's more of the same. We throw these words around, this Industry 4.0 and things of that nature. It's more of that. It's going to be maybe consolidation of systems that were all quite possibly running on a common system. We've done a little bit about that with Okuma with utilizing APIs.

Wade Anderson:

Yep.

Bob Baldizzi:

There are other systems out there as well, but maybe some more commonality that we all start using. So the interfacing between all these manufacturing islands becomes a little bit more streamlined. So I would love to see a point where we just start plugging these things in with a common plug and all of the sudden they start talking to each other. And then the end result is a customer now sees everything.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Bob Baldizzi:

Whatever's connected, all comes back to him.

Wade Anderson:

I think you make an interesting point because I know in the states, we all talk about MTConnect and things of that nature. And go to Europe, it's a lot of OPC UA and that kind of protocol. It would be nice from a global standpoint, if we would combine and get one nice protocol that globally everybody talks to. But yeah, that's an interesting point. The communication has changed so dramatically to your point in the last 10 years. It's incredible where we were in such a short amount of time. And I think of the evolution of machining, speeds and feeds increases, the technology changes, but the real evolution or revolutions have been really on the communication side and how machines are integrated more to the business system.

Bob Baldizzi:

Oh, absolutely. And I see it even from a service standpoint.

Wade Anderson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bob Baldizzi:

All of our systems are capable of being tied into the internet and then having our factory guys, whether they're in our office in the United States, in Ohio, or our corporate office in Finland. Having those guys tie into it and have some sort of an event where they can firstly take control of the thing and look at data points and find out what's wrong.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Bob Baldizzi:

And that's been wildly effective for us to the tune of about 80% of the problems that that customers experience, who call into our system are fixed in that matter without even a guy showing up.

Wade Anderson:

That's a high percentage rate. That's excellent.

Bob Baldizzi:

It's amazing. But these are the types of things that have changed, to your point about where we were 10 years ago, to where we are now. We have all this technology now to be able to do that. Our system is simple, it's not a machine tool. Machine tools have some complications to them because what they do, they're amazing machines. We're a pick and place robot. We take things from A to B, and we embrace that ‘KISS’ mentality, because we are the thing that gets looked at very heavily when things go down. We could have 6, 7, 10 machining centers hooked up to our system and we go down, they're all down.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Bob Baldizzi:

So we really look at things, scrutinize things, try to keep it as simple as possible and as robust as possible. And that's got us to our point with that high percentage of fixes over the internet.

Wade Anderson:

Again, getting closer to your 8760, right?

Bob Baldizzi:

Now that you mention it, that's what it's all about. This logo continuously comes around in our circle. Everything we do is tied to that. So that's why we like to partner with robust machines like Okuma, because you guys have a huge success rate as far as keeping them running. So machine tools that are robust and run forever, tied to systems that have the same virtues. Again, get us closer to that 8760 mark.

Wade Anderson:

Yep. You're only as strong as your weakest link, right?

Bob Baldizzi:

That's right. Yep, yep. That rubber chain.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah, rubber chain.

Bob Baldizzi:

Yep.

Wade Anderson:

I've never actually heard that line. I'm going to use that.

Bob Baldizzi:

Yep.

Wade Anderson:

Well Bob, thank you for your time today, if people want to learn more about Fastems, how do they reach out to you? How do they find you guys?

Bob Baldizzi:

Oh, we're all over the place. Of course, Fastems.com is a great place for information, we have videos, we have customer testimonials, we have contact info of all of our regional guys there. We have a big presence on YouTube, Vimeo, if you want to see systems in action, things of that nature. All you have to do is take a look at social media and you'll find us.

Wade Anderson:

All right.

Bob Baldizzi:

Pick up the phone and we'll answer it as well.

Wade Anderson:

Fantastic. Well, thanks for joining us today. Really appreciate the discussion around the FMS systems and all the automation components that Fastems can bring to the table. Thank you guys for joining us, this episode of Shop Matters. If you have any thoughts, questions, or ideas for future podcasts, please feel free to reach out to us. You can find us at www.okuma.com/shop-matters. Till next time, thanks.

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