Episodes

Recently, we have seen a growing number of mergers and acquisitions in the manufacturing space. After these deals are finalized there’s a lot of uncertainty for the employees caught in the middle of reorganization. Our guest on the podcast today is Jennifer Fondrevay. Jennifer is a best selling author and the Founder of Day1 Ready, a consultancy that advises companies on how to prepare for challenges that result from changes in the workplace. This interview will be helpful for anybody dealing u...

In light of the current chaos in Brazil, we decided to post a great past interview we did with Ali Jamil Jomaa, Executive Director at Samot, a huge Brazilian automotive supplier. Hearing Jomaa describe how difficult it is to run a company in Brazil I think will give some perspective on why so many Brazilians are angry about their country’s politics. On today’s show we are heading back to Brazil as we continue our season exploring the machining industry around the world. Our guest is Ali Jamil J...

Why was 2022 the best year of my life so far? (This blog was also recorded as a podcast narrated by Noah Graff). Listen with the player below, Apple Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast app) Reason Number 1: I Improved My State of Being I began working with my life coach, Ginny Cutler, in January. She is coaching me on “being” who I WANT to be. The idea is that if you “feel” stuck, the only way to become unstuck is to transform your state of being. She says to ask yourself, “What would I be do...

After serving in the Navy SEALs for nine years, Bill Berrien retired from the military in 1999, ready for a new chapter in his life. He attended Harvard business school where there were six other SEALs in his class. After graduating from Harvard, Bill worked as a Six Sigma Blackbelt at General Electric Health Care, which brought him to the Milwaukee area in 2002. Rather than climb the ladder at a large corporation, Bill’s ambition was to eventually acquire his own business. Scroll down to read m...

Bill Berrien has had an extraordinary professional journey. He earned an MBA at Harvard, worked for General Electric and then in private equity. Ten years ago, he purchased Pindel Global Precision, a successful two-generation machining company near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which he has modernized and grown over the past decade. Oh, I forgot to mention, he was also a Navy SEAL officer for nine years. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Ap...

Today’s guest on the podcast is Jon Perin, owner and President of Perin Industries, a young CNC machining company in Webster City, Iowa. Jon, started Perin Industries in 2018, after a 12-year career as a hospital administrator. Like many entrepreneurs, Jon has had to face some daunting challenges. Starting out, he aggressively bought new state of the art CNC equipment to make parts for the medical sector. When he had trouble penetrating that market he successfully pivoted to fire arms work. Scr...

Do you know what is really going on with your machines? Have you actually listened to them lately? Today’s guest on Swarfcast is Jeff Rizzie, Director of Digital Enablement at Sandvik Coromant. Sandvik is renown for its cutting tools, but the company has branched out into selling cloud-based machine monitoring software called CoroPlus Machining Insights. Machining Insights measures the overall equipment effectiveness, or OEE, of a factory’s machines, collecting data such as spindle speeds, axis ...

At IMTS 2022, I stumbled upon a booth with an impressive 28 foot rocket on display, constructed by students from the Purdue University Bechtel Innovation Design Center. Anirudh Pal, an operations manager at Bechtel, and Xander Wells, an undergraduate teaching assistant at Bechtel, told me the story behind the rocket’s creation when I interviewed them for today’s podcast. The Bechtel Innovation Design Center is a makerspace, where undergrad students of all different majors have the opportunity to...

At IMTS 2022, I had the privilege of interviewing Bryan Stusak and Steve Vanderink, two product specialists from Iscar Metals, world renown seller of cutting tools for machining. We talked about the latest developments in cutting tool technology that enable faster changeover, and how to save money by using inserts properly when removing small amounts of material. If you’ve been wishing for a more technical episode of Swarfcast, this is the one for you. Scroll down to read more and listen to th...

Our guest on today’s podcast is Adar Hay, co-founder and CEO of Jiga, a company providing a web platform for manufacturing buyers and suppliers to communicate and establish new relationships. It’s ironic how in today’s world, in which we have so many channels to communicate and network, it’s still complicated to do those things well. Jiga’s mission is to simplify those processes. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Sp...

I came into contact with Edwin Nyuysever Mbinkar a month ago, when he sent an email to Graff-Pinkert inquiring about an expensive Mikron 5-axis machining center on our website. He explained that he was the manager of a High Tech Centre (British spelling of “Center”) in Cameroon, and he wanted his school to have the first 5-axis machining center in the country. I was intrigued by his story, so I looked for a reasonably priced machine for him. I located a Haas 5-axis in Wisconsin and then queried...

Today’s podcast is an American Dream story. Our guest is Dulio Arellano, owner of Premier Swiss, a Tornos shop in Addison, Illinois, which he founded in 2017. Dulio came to the United States from Mexico when he was 18 years old. After working in various machine shops, Dulio got a job as a technician at Tornos USA. At Tornos, Dulio developed skills and relationships that gave him the foundation to start his own business at the age of 34. Scroll Down to Listen to the Podcast Main Points of the In...

Today’s guest on the podcast is Matt Wardle, owner and President of JD Machine Corp. in Ogden, Utah. JD Machine currently produces around 4,000 active part numbers, serving a diverse group of sectors, which include aerospace, defense, and medical. Matt says he sometimes envies other machining companies who have a more narrow focus on the types of parts they produce because it simplifies their operations. Yet, he insists that producing a diverse group of parts is the best path for his company to...

Today we’re celebrating the milestone of 150 episodes of Swarfcast. This is actually Episode 155. We just didn’t get around to doing this one until now. I hope you enjoy as we look back at four of our favorite past episodes spanning the last four years. Four years! Not much has happened for me? Besides getting married, surviving a pandemic, and having my first child a month and a half ago. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Po...

Tyler Jarosz sent me an email about a month and a half ago to ask if Graff-Pinkert would be interested in a used little parts washer he no longer needed in his machine shop. He found out about Graff-Pinkert from listening to Swarfcast, which I’m proud to say is the only podcast he has ever listened to. At 40 years young, Tyler recently retired, closing Twenty6Products, his 1-employee shop, which had been lucrative enough over the last decade and a half that he can now spend his time doing whatev...

Our guest on today’s show is Steve Tamasi, owner and CEO of Boston Centerless, a distributor and manufacturer of ground bar stock. I asked Steve why there is such a shortage of raw materials for precision turning manufacturers and what companies can do to deal with this problem. We also talked about how the war in Ukraine is affecting metals prices. What is pig iron, anyway? Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify...

Our guest on the podcast today is Jennifer Grant, marketing manager for Haizol Global Europe. Haizol is a company that connects manufacturing companies in plastics and metal working with suppliers in Asia, most often China. The company’s value proposition is that it bypasses daunting challenges inherent when outsourcing to foreign countries, such as vetting suppliers and communicating in a foreign language. Haizol has to two separate Web platforms, haizolglobal.com and haizol.com. Scroll down to...

Nobody knows how the current tragic war in Ukraine will play out, but I hope that those listening to the second half of our interview with Dr. Andrew R. Thomas will get a little bit of new insight into how the conflict fits into the world’s energy economy. Andrew is an author and business professor at University of Akron. In 2018, he published a book called American Shale Energy and the Global Economy. He also published a book in 2014 called Geopolitics, Development and National Security, Romani...

Today’s podcast is Part 1 of a two part series discussing the current state of the global energy supply and how it ultimately relates to the war in Ukraine. Our guest is Dr. Andrew R. Thomas, author and business professor at University of Akron. He has published 25 books, most of them at the intersection of global strategy, business development, security and energy. In 2018 he published a book called American Shale Energy and the Global Economy. He also published a book in 2014 called Geopolitic...

Our guest on the show today is my friend Miles Free, Director of Industry Affairs at the Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA). Miles was actually the first featured guest on this podcast four years ago, and we are very thankful to have him back for episode 149. He is definitely one of the most passionate people I know about the machining world. It was a great conversation in which we covered an array of topics, such as tariffs, shop safety, electric cars, and even a bit about Ghostbust...

Our guest on the podcast today is Jim Gosselin, owner and President of Genevieve Swiss Industries. Genevieve Swiss sells innovative accessories specifically for Swiss CNC lathes, such as live tooling and cutting tools, to combat the problems small parts manufacturers constantly deal with. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Find us on Social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast...

Our guest on today’s podcast is Lauren Dunford, CEO and cofounder of Guidewheel. Guidewheel produces a sensor that clips onto a machine tool’s power supply to collect data while it runs. The data helps manufacturers understand what processes on the shop floor need to be improved and guides them toward solutions. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Find us on Social: Facebook: https://ww...

Have you ever asked yourself what your purpose is when you go to work in the morning? Sometimes I wonder if I’m spending enough time making an important impact on the world, or if I’m too wrapped up in the mechanics of making deals on machine tools. In this week’s podcast we interviewed Brent Robertson of Fathom. Brent is a business philosopher and consultant. His mission is help people discover what their purpose is, beyond just making money. He has found that if he can give people purpose in ...

Our guest on today’s podcast is Dr. Andrew R. Thomas, best selling author and Associate Professor of Marketing and International business at the University of Akron. Thomas says today reshoring is finally happening. After decades of sending manufacturing work to China, Western companies are finally realizing this strategy is often not the answer for generating better profits. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotif...