Tim Falcone is the CEO of PraesiDM, a company that integrates manufacturing technology platforms and builds digital systems for machine shops. His firm enables manufacturers to standardize processes and capture critical data through seamless software integration. Watch as Tim discusses the biggest technology challenges facing manufacturers, how digital work instructions can eliminate hiring barriers common in the job market, and why American manufacturing needs better automation infrastructure.
Nate Wheeler is the owner of weCreate Web Design and Marketing, a nationally recognized marketing agency that helps manufacturers grow, save money, and become more efficient. Need help or want to be a podcast guest? Reach out to us below.
Nate Wheeler (00:01)
Welcome to Manufacturing Insiders. Today I have Tim Falcone with me. He is a brilliant guy. He is a mechanical engineer by trade. He’s been deeply involved in software development, software integration in the manufacturing space. And he’s really created a brand new concept for manufacturing. I’m really excited to pick his brain about this because I know there’s a lot of shop owners out there that see all these options in the field. You know, these different ERPs that they could choose from, these different design softwares, information tracking, data collection, all this technology, somebody’s out there trying to sell you. And I just think to myself, there’s got to be a way to create a perfect system or a near perfect system that integrates all these things together. So Tim has some insights for us on that. So welcome to Manufacturing Insiders.
Tim Falcone (00:53)
Thanks Nate, thanks for having me.
Nate Wheeler (00:55)
Absolutely. Before I jump too far into it, just want to make a quick note. Please subscribe to our channel. If you’re watching this video, like it, give us a like, give us a share, listen to us on your way to work. If you’re a leader that has insights to share with other manufacturing leaders that would be helpful to them, go to manufacturinginsiders.com, fill out the form there and we’d love to have you on as a guest. So Tim, can you describe Presidium, I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly, and what you’re doing there?
Tim Falcone (01:24)
Yeah, no, it’s Presidium. So I always kind of start our pitch like people are, where’d you come up with the name and everything else. So we kind of, stole it from the Latin word Presidium, which is actually spelled D-I-U-M. And we kind of shorted it for digital manufacturing at the end with a D-M, which means defense and shield. And we really think that your best offense is a great defense. And in the world we live in today, that’s our ability to manufacture not only defense components and aerospace components, but just general industrial components throughout the United States, which really we’ve lost track of over the last 40 or 50 years. So I’ve had a vision for a long time to stand up a company to really start to enable people to capture data, recapture data, reuse data and standardize methodology and how we process components. Specifically right now, we’re working a lot around additive and subtractive manufacturing, where we feel like our technology could be deployed across any industry really manufacturing components from robotic assemblies right down to manufacturing fabrics or composites.
Nate Wheeler (02:29)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (02:31)
We just happen to know the additive subtractive role very well and that’s kind of where we’re focusing on right now and a lot of our customers come from the aerospace defense world. So that’s what we’re focused on.
Nate Wheeler (02:45)
Okay. Yeah, so what’s the biggest challenge that you’re seeing in the manufacturing space when it comes to technology and automation?
Tim Falcone (02:58)
I think the biggest challenge is which slice of pie you want to pick.
Nate Wheeler (03:02)
All right. There’s so many.
Tim Falcone (03:06)
Or like, you know, if you go to the baker, it’s like 100 pies. And it’s like, OK, which one do I want? Right. And how they going to mesh with a couple of coffee that I have or whatever it is?
Nate Wheeler (03:15)
Right.
Tim Falcone (03:16)
You know, think deploying this, I think there’s a lot of great technology out there. I mean, we happen to just focus around a lot of proceedings tech. So everything from the motion control side. PLM. That’s our sweet spot. That’s what we know. It’s what we’re good at. So a lot of the tech that we build is around the seamless platforms, but there is definitely a lot of great software in the manufacturing world. And I think right now we have big issue with connectivity, right? Like how do we make all these platforms communicate in a way that makes sense and is easily deployed, keyword easily deployable for the general manufacturer, considering that the industrial base consists of like 20 or 30 thousand mom and pop shops with like an average employee count of like seven to 15. Right. So we’re not
Nate Wheeler (04:02)
Yep.
Tim Falcone (04:03)
talking about huge enterprise solutions where people can devote a ton of cash and time to get up and running, right. You know,
Nate Wheeler (04:11)
Great.
Tim Falcone (04:12)
something deployable and easy to use at the end of the day, I think is the key word. So
Nate Wheeler (04:17)
Right.
Tim Falcone (04:18)
what we, what we found is a couple of major components that people struggle with and we’re
Nate Wheeler (04:28)
Okay. And so what are those components? What are the biggest ones?
Tim Falcone (04:35)
Yeah, so you’d be surprised, we started our business on developing post processors and simulation kits for a lot of our customers and utilizing full capabilities of machine tools. While it sounds great on paper, it’s very difficult. your post processor is a connection between your cam system and your machine tool, right? if you have a mean, new machines have grinding capabilities, mill-turn capabilities, multi-axis probing, all machine metrology. So really utilizing full capabilities in machine tool. That’s how we started our business was how do we connect the CAM system to the machine tool with utmost functionality, right? Where
Nate Wheeler (05:26)
Thank
Tim Falcone (05:26)
we can actually utilize any kind of… custom HMI from the manufacturer, or for example, like in a Siemens control, how do we standardize output for like cycle 832 for smoothing on different types of operations, just to simplify the use case for the end user, the cam programmer. So we built our business around that. And while we did that, while we do that successfully now, it’s like part of what we do to stay alive here at Presidium, in addition to build software components. You know, we found that like, all of these gaps at every customer, whether it be like all machine metrology issues, QMS issues, equality issues, or right down to even simple things that we take for granted like tool management,
Nate Wheeler (06:17)
Okay.
Tim Falcone (06:18)
know, tool management is one of the hardest things to accomplish. It really standardizing all the shop tools, making a data set for them all here in your own shop, and then standardizing feeds and speeds for those tools as well based upon materials. How do we collect all that data and recapture it so we can reuse it simply by saying, that’s a pocket in 718 Incanal. And this is how we cut it with this tool. It’s this deep on this machine. And here are the feeds and speeds. And quickly deploy it and be successful at it. So our first article part becomes an actual part, not a scrap part.
Nate Wheeler (06:58)
Right.
Tim Falcone (06:59)
or something we put on our shelves and be like, well, that was almost good enough.
Nate Wheeler (07:02)
Right.
Tim Falcone (07:03)
But the second one, we wanted everyone to hit them on the first time every time. So we look at ways of standardizing processes really to enable anybody to get into manufacturing. Once we start to collect those data points, standardize process, it just becomes a click of the button. Manufacturing becomes as easy as navigating around your iPhone or your Android. It doesn’t have to be as complex as, as we make it, I think we’ve just lost the capability and traceability of what manufacturing in America is, know, and, and data knowledge, right? Like that’s, think we all are stuck on processes, like how we do things internally and we don’t really share, like, you know, that’s the biggest thing, right? And I get like, yeah, their IP or what they’re doing, right? You know, but,
Nate Wheeler (07:49)
Right. Manufacturers hold very close to their chest. Sometimes to an excessive extent. I’m in marketing and I work with lot of manufacturers and part of my job is to generate content that’s going to attract new business leads to come through their website. In order to do that, you need to share some information. And boy, you have some people that are like, yeah, just don’t put the company name. We can kind of describe what we did. And then there’s other ones that are like, we can’t even say that we did anything in this industry. And I’m like, all right.
Tim Falcone (08:24)
It gets a little bit too crazy. mean, like, look, when we’re cutting metal, we’re cutting metal, right? Like, don’t, we don’t have to be specific on what kind of parts we’re cutting, but, you know, we’re profiling this material on this type of machine tool at this depth of cut, you know, like where we’re successful at, you know, what’s, you know, what’s a standardized feed and speed for that material and be able to apply it quickly and easily and even just right down to the tool path by simple click of the button, your mouse button. So. What we think is that through our network of factories, we’re able to start collecting more and more data and be able to capture it and reuse it and standardize a lot of these processes that a lot of people struggle with.
Nate Wheeler (09:08)
So how does that 17-man machine shop, how would they engage with you? Is this a suite of software that you sell to them? Do you come in as a consultant and say, need these three pieces of technology and then we’re going to tie them all together? How do you get involved there?
Tim Falcone (09:28)
Right now, we’re still building our platform, which consists of everything from CAM to data management, QMS, ERP, and also digitalized work instructions that are able to easily communicate tasks via videos, basically. Interactive videos is what we’re trying to accomplish.
Nate Wheeler (09:49)
Yep, yep, interesting. Yeah, that’s it.
Tim Falcone (09:56)
So right now we are building a platform. We don’t have anything available for sale at the moment, but we are starting to scale our first factory in the city of St. Louis with the same methodology that we’re using here in our facility in Evergreen, Colorado.
Nate Wheeler (10:12)
Very interesting.
Tim Falcone (10:14)
So like while we, like I said, most of the things are devised around Siemens platform. So we are big on Siemens NX in-house for both our CAD and CAM and engineering for that matter. It’s what we think is the best vertically integrated engineering system in the market. And it now allows us for full traceability from the part right down to the CAM program. And then on top of that, our work instructions are all built from the building materials. And we’re working on an AI component on that too. So we’re constantly updating the work instructions to really like if you were working at Walmart at the cash register before, you can put together a fixture, you know, based upon instructions, right? It’s like, it’s as easy as changing the brake pads on your car, right? Like if you’re like, I’ve never done this before, but I’m sure I can where we go? We go like and search for my, you know, 19 or my 2015 Ford F-150 and I go like, I want to change brakes to these things, you know, whatever it may be, go to YouTube, right? I’m sure there’s a 2015 Ford F-150 and a guy out there showing you how to do it, right? So we’re doing that in manufacturing and we’re doing on the AI level and AI video content level really, right? I mean, so while we’re integrating all of these outside components and data structures, really the key driver of our success is enabling anybody in the workforce to jump in and quickly get into manufacturing. Right. I, joke around. like,
Nate Wheeler (11:48)
which is still in place.
Tim Falcone (11:49)
what’s the hardest, what’s the hardest part about hiring people in manufacturing? And it’s the resume, right? You know,
Nate Wheeler (11:54)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (11:55)
that that’s the biggest joke of it all because like, if you go look for a job in manufacturing, it’s like must have experience with five axis mill or, or turning centers or cam programming in this specific cam seat, whether it’s like NX or Mastercam or HyperMill or Esprit or whatever, there’s a million of them, right?
Nate Wheeler (12:16)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (12:18)
The hardest part about hiring people in manufacturing is the resume. So what happens when we just take the resume out of that and enable anybody to get into manufacturing?
Nate Wheeler (12:25)
Exactly.
Tim Falcone (12:27)
I think there’s a lot of people out there that want better jobs, want better opportunity for employment and better opportunity for growth. And I think manufacturing can be that light for people. And especially when you start to look at underserved communities, whether that’s inner city or rural, Like people that were farmers before that, maybe farming is not the thing for them anymore, or they’re just looking for a way to be successful in life and provide for their families. And I think manufacturing can be that driver for them.
Nate Wheeler (13:03)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Tim Falcone (13:04)
And using software like Presidium’s map system is really where we thrive, what we’re trying to accomplish here.
Nate Wheeler (13:12)
Yeah, so I’m interested in that concept. I’ve actually had a couple of conversations recently about the digital work instructions. So how are you capturing the video?
Tim Falcone (13:27)
So right now, the AI thing is still in the works. So right now, we’re manually making videos of everything from building tools to running software to building fixtures to running the machine tool to simple things like maintenance on the air compressor. So
Nate Wheeler (13:42)
Right. Yep.
Tim Falcone (13:44)
we’re capturing all of this data with the idea that we can later on associate different components with a digital library. So then we can say, here’s your… Um, HSK 100 half inch, five and a half inch long shrink and holder. How do I use the shrink and how do I do this? Well, the tool you need is in this drawer and the shrinking units over here. And this is how we operate it and be able to create digital AI, generate digital content, um, specifically for that tool rather than like a generic, you know, this is how we build it. Right.
Nate Wheeler (14:16)
Right.
Tim Falcone (14:18)
Um, so like, you know, I think, I think we’re on our way to doing what we, what we’re trying to accomplish. It’s hard, right? Like there’s just so many jobs on the shop. So it’s
Nate Wheeler (14:29)
I mean, it’s huge, it’s huge.
Tim Falcone (14:31)
just an insane amount of data and content that we’re all trying to collect here at the company. And
Nate Wheeler (14:36)
Great.
Tim Falcone (14:37)
it’s a slow process. You know, while we are, you know, we’re not, we’re not like a VC funded company. You know, we bootstrapped everything we have here. I think which says a lot about the dedication to our, of our team and what we’re trying to accomplish. Everybody really believes in the vision and the capabilities that we have here.
Nate Wheeler (14:55)
Yeah, and I mean, you definitely have a bigger vision, I think, than a lot of machine shops or manufacturers. did this just sort of evolve over time? Did you kind of start out as just a traditional machine shop or additive manufacturing shop? And then you started to identify just inefficiencies in places you could automate, and then you just started building components, and then it just turned into this? Or how did it come about?
Tim Falcone (15:23)
Yeah, no, you know, crazy story. I worked for Siemens before this and I just saw a lot of struggle. Like a lot of people like just struggling deploying the software. I specifically worked on manufacturing side. So cams cam integration for customers and struggles are real. Like, you know, they couldn’t figure out how to drive the machine to the cam system or or create a certain type of operation. And I saw an opportunity. So I left Siemens and started a consulting company. So we built everything from the ground up. This is going on the 11th year now in 2015. So the shop was always on my mind, know, unfortunately, unfortunately, and guess fortunately, the capital investment is standing up manufacturing facilities and say, right, like it’s
Nate Wheeler (16:16)
See you then.
Tim Falcone (16:17)
nuts. Fortunately, we have great partners. I’m here helping us stand up our vision and really bring it to fruition. Like Zoller has been a huge component of what we’re trying to accomplish from the tool management side, from everything from their hardware sitting behind me here, you know? And,
Nate Wheeler (16:34)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (16:35)
you know, so everything from the tool benches they have to pre-setters, balancers, shrinking tools, right down to their holders. And also, know, Heller got involved with us about a year ago now, supplied us with machine tool, helping us Hoping to just realize this vision of what we can really accomplish through digitalization of the manufacturing.
Nate Wheeler (16:56)
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s a huge advantage as a consulting company that you’re also doing the manufacturing. actually doing your experimentation and learning. Yeah.
Tim Falcone (17:03)
Well, that was a thing, right? was like always like, you know. And even like, you know, not to like, you know, turn down people or whatever, but, you know, a lot of these companies build software platforms, but they never implement them. And I think that’s a huge flaw because you’re relying on somebody that doesn’t understand manufacturing and what needs to be done. You’re relying on a software developer to develop a fake environment that may or may not work for you.
Nate Wheeler (17:38)
Right.
Tim Falcone (17:38)
And my vision was always to take it from the consulting side, see people’s problems, realize they’re on the shop floor and fix them and show them how we fixed them here with technology.
Nate Wheeler (17:51)
Right.
Tim Falcone (17:52)
And that’s been a huge game changer for us. mean, our ability not only to educate our customers on what’s available and what’s really capable, but really to show it off. look. This actually is working. We’re cutting parts right here. This technology is a real thing. Like I’m not,
Nate Wheeler (18:09)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Falcone (18:12)
I’m not like just, you know, blowing smoke here and saying like, well, this could work. and the funny story from the bigger companies, it’s like all these enterprise software solutions that, yeah, I I’m sure they could work. But like I have to invest like not only the software costs, but like $200,000 into engineering and support to get all of this working. And yeah, by the way, Every year, I’m probably going to have to invest like another 25 to 50 into the engineering side because continually updates, changes in my shop, workflows, whatever. So what happens if we start to standardize that and use our engineering team to help deploy this software and solutions and processes and workflows throughout a bunch of shops? We shrink our engineering budget, right? Considerably as a small shop, right? We don’t need these consultants anymore because we have a main hub team that supports all of our software activities.
Nate Wheeler (19:08)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (19:09)
So that was kind of the dream. That’s what we’re chasing after right now is being able to not only stand up our own facilities, but distribute our software at some of these smaller, smaller shops and really give them much higher throughput, higher efficiencies and the ability to hire anybody, right? Like
Nate Wheeler (19:26)
Right.
Tim Falcone (19:27)
where they struggle. It’s like, who the heck am I going to hire? Well, what if I said you could hire anybody?
Nate Wheeler (19:32)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (19:32)
Like all they had to have was a little bit of a vision to learn and like, you know, that’s it, right? Like, yeah, if they have like a mechanical background or like, you know, the kid down the street that takes apart his car every weekend or is, you know, putting new performance components on her or whatever it may be, those are the guys we’re trying to attract into manufacturing because we feel like it’s got the bad rap for so long, right? Like, you know, our parents, you know, looked at us and said, you’re going to college. You’re not, you’re not going to work in this
greasy environment and dirty environment. Well, like come into our shop, it’s like painted floors and robotics
Nate Wheeler (20:08)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (20:09)
and everything’s organized and it’s super clean and it’s a great place to work. And I think we can do that with all manufacturing United States, even down to like the dirtiest industries, like castings, right? I think we, there’s so much potential to make it better and make it more attractive for people. Like, yeah, you know, working at a big forging place with like hot molten metal. I mean, it’s going to suck either way, you know? But I think we can we can make it better and
Nate Wheeler (20:35)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (20:36)
that’s what we’re trying to accomplish like we don’t want people We don’t want people to hate their jobs right like I work in manufacturing no, I’m a manufacturing technician, you know, that’s what
Nate Wheeler (20:48)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s it. It’s in framing. That’s yeah, that’s exactly it. I was talking in the machine shop and that was one big thing that he emphasized is the way that we describe the job. They call them engineers. They’re not obviously trained engineers, but they would call them, know, machining engineers, something to that effect.
Tim Falcone (21:07)
Yeah.
Nate Wheeler (21:08)
That way when the kid goes and tells his parent, I’m getting this job, they’re like, oh, well, that sounds nice. That’s something I can tell my friends that my son does.
Tim Falcone (21:16)
Yeah, yeah. And scale like that. Let’s scale manufacturing with a positive, forward-facing attitude. Let’s think about the innovation and the possibilities of what we can do with American manufacturing, not the setbacks of what we had in the past. And I think we all get stuck in the past of what it was, what it could be. And I think like we’re just, we’re just changing, like, you know, we’re just changing what manufacturing is and also the hands-on, right? Like we’re doing so much with robotics and machine tools and software now. Like we’re not opening doors anymore to go measure in process workpiece. You know, we’re doing all the machine tool. Like we’re running a full all machine metrology system on our machine tool that like when the part comes off, we already know it’s good. It still
Nate Wheeler (22:05)
Right.
Tim Falcone (22:06)
goes through all of our QMS processes and procedures for AS9100, but we know it’s a good part before it even leaves the machine tool.
Nate Wheeler (22:14)
Exactly.
Tim Falcone (22:16)
And if it’s not a good part, we can automatically make updates to it to hopefully make corrections. Obviously, I can’t put back material, but we always have the opportunity to remove material or change features if that’s available.
Nate Wheeler (22:29)
Right, right, right. Yeah, very interesting. have you, you know, kind of in your building your vision for this really technologically advanced type of manufacturing, you know, I hear a lot about China and we kind of have this concept in our minds of China is, you know, cheap, you know, low quality, whatever. But, you know, everyone’s saying that’s changed so dramatically. I mean, they’re 80 % automated over there. We’re like 8 % automated over here. So have you kind of looked at some of those case studies and said we need to bring that to America or is this sort of just straight from your head?
Tim Falcone (23:08)
No, no, mean, you know, everybody else is kicking our butt, man. You
Nate Wheeler (23:12)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (23:13)
know, it doesn’t matter if it’s China or even even Germany. Like you go spend time in Germany and like there’s so many German made parts and components and things that they use in their daily lives, all made right there in Germany. And I think for most of us here, you know, you flip over your water bottle, you’re like, oh, man, some Asian country, you know.
Nate Wheeler (23:36)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (23:36)
We want to change that. think automation is the key to it, right? Because we don’t want to encourage people to come in and get dirty every day and greasy. That may happen, but generally speaking, these are clean jobs, right?
Nate Wheeler (23:50)
will be.
Tim Falcone (23:51)
These are loading and unloading parts, simple assembly, or our ability to place parts on a table where a robot automatically will grab the part and assemble it for us, right? So these are simpler jobs. They’re not complex, right? And for the complex jobs, have the complex tasks at the shop. We have software to support you in every step.
Nate Wheeler (24:14)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Tim Falcone (24:17)
So I think there is an essence of manpower that’s needed in manufacturing, right? I think you can’t ever just say, that’s a fully automated shop. They don’t even need people anymore. I don’t think I don’t believe in that. I don’t believe in like, I believe in automating the tasks that people no longer want to do and making it simpler. But I also think people need something to do. You know, I think like that’s, that’s part of us. It’s built into us. Like we need, we need something to drive us as just humans, right? You
Nate Wheeler (24:48)
Right.
Tim Falcone (24:48)
know, you just can’t like get a paycheck every month and be like, I just sit on my couch and do nothing. that would drive me crazy. Like
Nate Wheeler (24:53)
Yeah, like the universal basic income when AI and robotics runs everything. Yeah, it sounds terrible.
Tim Falcone (25:00)
No, no, I love what we do here. mean, it’s the challenge is so great, but we’re building something awesome. And I believe in it. I think, you know, looking back on the past, used to be this American pride that we had in manufacturing, like, it’s built America, you know, American strong. And we’ve lost that, you know, and we want to revitalize it. We want to bring it back. We want to make the American manufacturing the hub of the world for what’s really capable. mean, if you look at the technology platforms that we have, they’re all developed here in the United States, we trump everybody. We’re great at building technology. Why don’t we focus around deploying it in manufacturing and making it more accessible and building something great that Americans can stand by?
Nate Wheeler (25:52)
Yeah, no, I agree. So where do you draw the line? know, because, you know, there’s arguments to be made for needing, you know, critical infrastructure, critical manufacturing, at least to some degree here, you know, the forging, you know, the raw steel suppliers, all that kind of stuff, just for our own security. But, you know, a lot of people say, well, how much of that do we want here? Like, what type of manufacturing do you think we should be focusing on? What are we going to have a competitive advantage in?
Tim Falcone (26:24)
Well, mean, obviously, you know, defense and aerospace, energy sectors, right? You start to look at like, what are the biggest problems in a role right now? It’s energy, right? All of these components for whether it’s a modular nuclear reactors or fusion now, whatever it’s going to be, are going to be like machine components or grown components of some sort, right? You
Nate Wheeler (26:46)
Yep. Yep.
Tim Falcone (26:46)
know, so I think, you know, starting with an infrastructure around technology sector, you know, with, like I said, defense, aerospace, you know, energy is huge, right? sciences,
Nate Wheeler (26:57)
No, we’re safe place. Yeah.
Tim Falcone (27:00)
right? I think, think, um, I think there’s a lot that we said that what we can do with that and just the supply and demand from the raw material side to castings and forgings are going to drive other industries
Nate Wheeler (27:11)
Right.
Tim Falcone (27:12)
to further develop here in
Nate Wheeler (27:14)
Right.
Tim Falcone (27:14)
America. I think that’s just a starting point. Now, like, you know, if you’re talking about like plastic extruded toys and everything else, like I think that’s that’s pretty far away. Especially when you look at China with raw material costs is insane compared to what we have here in United States. And I think part of that’s some of the EPA restrictions we have.
Nate Wheeler (27:37)
Yeah, we export our research.
Tim Falcone (27:41)
think also, not to talk politics here, but our government doesn’t step in for manufacturers enough. They just make it more difficult on us.
Nate Wheeler (27:47)
Right? Yeah. Yeah, and I was really optimistic, you know, originally about the tariffs because, you know, the stated goal of it was to make U.S. manufacturing stronger. But now I’m getting, you know, for the past six months, I’ve got the opposite story from every manufacturer that I’ve talked to that they’re all hurting from it. What’s your take on that?
Tim Falcone (28:14)
man, I get the hurting part. I am still a big believer in it though. just don’t think we… Look, at the end of day, manufacturing is capital intensive. And as much as the government wants to tow, like, let’s make manufacturing great again, and we want to build it here and build it better, like, the government needs to step in and help manufacturers out with like small interest loans, you know?
Nate Wheeler (28:41)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (28:41)
Shoot, zero percent interest loan. us what you’re building, what you’re doing, and we’ll help you buy the equipment to do it. I wouldn’t be out without
Nate Wheeler (28:48)
And it makes sense. mean, the tax revenue.
Tim Falcone (28:51)
having to sign away your firstborn child, your house, whatever the heck else you own.
Nate Wheeler (28:54)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Falcone (28:56)
It’s a huge risk. It’s a huge investment. Machine tools like a multi-axis, mill-term center, start center, million bucks now. Do you know what I mean?
Nate Wheeler (29:07)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Falcone (29:10)
You we’re talking about higher end machinery, probably, of course, but, you know, yeah, it’s the price point of getting involved is significant. It’s a significant amount of money. And I think for America to be successful, we need more resource or more resources to capital, you know, capital intensive programs that offer some relief for the manufacturer because there are ups and downs to in manufacturing. Right. Like, I think. I think a lot of people are buying raw materials, ores from overseas before, and that’s kind of halted a lot of domestic manufacturing and that the of cost of materials has risen significantly with tariffs. But also I think, you know, we haven’t focused enough on what we can really do with automation and throughput on the shop floor. Like I think our efficiency from a machine tool side in general in America, something like 30%. Like
Nate Wheeler (30:12)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (30:12)
all the machine tools in the country, they run 30 % of the time on average. Like that’s pretty poor performance, you know? And it’s like, talked to all these, I talked to so many guys around the shop floor and, and like, well, we just bought this brand new DMG with a pallet changer on it. And it’s got 60 pallets and we run one job at a time and it sits there not running.
Nate Wheeler (30:37)
Yep. A lot of manufacturers hope that they have, you build it, they will come sort of philosophy. But then they end up in that situation where they have that million dollar machine sitting there and it’s only running a little bit at the time. And it’s like, okay, what are we going to do to get it running the entire time and to have lights out operations? so that’s when they get ahold of me.
Tim Falcone (31:00)
I think like, you know, building, right? So it’s like all about the data that you have. And if you’re not confident in the data that you have, it’s harder to deploy stuff lights out, right?
Nate Wheeler (31:10)
Right. Right.
Tim Falcone (31:11)
So like, that’s what we’re doing. We’re like building this giant manufacturing data set that like you have confidence when you program a part that things are gonna run. You have confidence that, that Jim built the right tool in the tool grid. That’s not going to crash at the machine because maybe you have some tight clearance issues on this one specific part.
Nate Wheeler (31:32)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (31:33)
know, confidence is what allows us to write run lights out. Confidence is what allows us to enable robotics in our manufacturing systems. And that’s all built from data structures, right? Like if we have confidence in the data that we’re outputting, you know, whether it’s our tool builds or feeds and speeds, our simulation, all of that, we can have confidence in saying, just hit go and walk away from it. You know, know,
Nate Wheeler (31:56)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (31:57)
so many shops don’t have the ability to invest in a lot of this, this tech. And I think what our platform is going to enable them is to get in at a reasonable price, right? That they’re gonna be able to see drastic throughput and changes in their business and justify the cost, right?
Nate Wheeler (32:15)
Yeah, which I think is amazing. And you’ll have the case studies. You’ll be able to demonstrate exactly what the damage parts or the first article of inspection that you throw out and the time saved and the retention of employees and things like that. I mean, I think it’s going to be pretty easy to demonstrate the cost savings. So what’s the timeline here? Like when can a machine shop call you up and say hey I need some help and you
Tim Falcone (32:48)
It calls up right now, man. I mean, you we can help them through various, various different platforms that we support right now.
Nate Wheeler (32:55)
Okay.
Tim Falcone (32:56)
You know, it’s something that we do on a daily basis. It’s part of our business structure is to not only build this software platform, make parts but help customers succeed in the software platforms that we’re driving right now. Like I said, while we are building our own internal system, encompassing what we call a map system with manufacturing automation platform, we still support all the Siemens products from the POM side to motion control. We support all the Zoller products. We support…A multitude of machine tool manufacturers as far as integration from post-processing, can the post-machine tool through a post-processing simulation. We work with all machine metrology solutions like my buddy Ray over at AT3D. I don’t know if you know those guys. They’re awesome over there though. like really making more of these, like in all of these systems need to be stood up in some sort of way, right? Um, and data needs to be collected and processes needed to develop. But like, what if I just came into your shop and said, we got this all figured out already for you, man. You can just click the buttons and
Nate Wheeler (34:03)
It’d be amazing. Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Falcone (34:05)
go, um, you know, like we, like I said, going back, like one of the most tedious things that we’ve done here is build our tool management system. And, I can’t even imagine. And like, I have to, like, I hammer on my guys, my team to like, this needs to be awesome guys. And it’s such a critical piece of the puzzle. It’s the keystone. It’s the keystone of the entire manufacturing facility is like our tool data management. And that’s like fixturing and an actual physical cutting tools for us and holders and how we deploy though, and how we build them and make sure they’re the right build every time for
Nate Wheeler (34:42)
Right.
Tim Falcone (34:42)
the programmer. Right. I mean, the, have thousands of hours in the building tools in just their own shop. But what if we could take that and like build tools at the St. Louis facility? And then I think. Connecticut and the Hartford area is going to be another facility we’re standing up soon. So like, what if we started to like collab and like have all this data and content already built for you so you can easily deploy it? Like you might not own the tool yet, but you
Nate Wheeler (35:07)
Right. Yeah.
Tim Falcone (35:10)
can, you can go into the TMS software and quickly purchase it and buy it and have it on your doorstep the next day to use it. Right. And then they’ve already
Nate Wheeler (35:16)
it’s amazing. Yeah, it’s like a little frame.
Tim Falcone (35:19)
figured out how we’re going to cut this ink in our pocket with this specific tool. And they’re
Nate Wheeler (35:24)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (35:25)
getting 50 minutes of tool life out of this one tool on high nickel content parts. How do we take that and enable people to not have to stand it up anymore? That’s
Nate Wheeler (35:40)
Right.
Tim Falcone (35:40)
the most challenging part is actually making it work.
Nate Wheeler (35:44)
Right. Yeah. mean, I think it’s brilliant. Yeah. Like I said, it kind of reminds me of, you know, sort of a franchise model. Like, you know, if you want to get into a McDonald’s franchise, they’re going to tell you, you know, where to order your supplies from here and tell you, you know, how long a burger needs to cook for and enable all the automation equipment and the training.
Tim Falcone (36:00)
Yeah, yeah. Well, like right, right down, they probably, mean, I don’t know anything about, I’m sure they have standardized fryers and grills and all the, like, hey,
Nate Wheeler (36:10)
yeah.
Tim Falcone (36:12)
here’s where you buy everything from.
Nate Wheeler (36:13)
Right. Yep.
Tim Falcone (36:15)
This all works and we all have, we all have all processes and procedures to make the perfect Big Mac every time, you know, and that’s what we’re doing. You know, I mean, I hate, you know, like, it started,
Nate Wheeler (36:20)
Yep. Well, and that’s, know, and for you too, mean, that’s huge.
Tim Falcone (36:25)
it’s so funny you said, franchise because like I’ve been on a couple calls now people say the same thing and I started with using the word franchise and and I think it like off puts people a little bit, you know, like instead of technology platform, you know,
Nate Wheeler (36:43)
Yeah, has a fast food food to it.
Tim Falcone (36:48)
like they think of McDonald’s or something like that. You’re like, no, we’re just trying to solve all these problems that you know, you already have and simplify the process through standardization. Like, yeah, like, you know, your competitor down the street, here’s the thing, right? Your competitor down the street might be running the same Presidium map system that we are, but they might have like, they might focus on different types of parts, different types of components or what they do, or they might have, you might focus on smaller components. Like you might have a, a, a Swiss shop or something. And these guys, like for us, we focus on a big components, you know, like one meter or bigger, like those are machine envelopes, you know?
Nate Wheeler (37:27)
Right.
Tim Falcone (37:29)
So like, and also like the guy down the street is also giving you data to support your future endeavors or your future projects. So we’re all
Nate Wheeler (37:36)
it’s huge,
Tim Falcone (37:37)
sharing this data set just to make it better and more, just more deployable.
Nate Wheeler (37:44)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, and there’s so many ways to go about it too. But like I’m thinking of like those, I can’t remember what you call this type of company, but they buy up manufacturers as a portfolio. But you would almost have a portfolio of manufacturers that you would have a stake in their business in exchange for the technology and the setup and all the assistance that you give them. But then they’re obviously running their business like a franchise. Yeah, I think it’s amazing.
Tim Falcone (38:14)
It’s funny you say that we are actually in the city of St. Louis, the beautiful city of St. Louis. We are standing up a model that is very similar to that. Like we are giving back a large percentage of the business of equity back to the employees because we don’t want them to be like, I just have a job and I show up and I check in and I’m here
Nate Wheeler (38:37)
Right, yeah.
Tim Falcone (38:41)
and I get paid and I leave. It’s like, no. Like we want you guys to be committed here. Like we want you guys to be passionate about what we’re doing. If you see a problem, let’s fix it. Right.
Nate Wheeler (38:49)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (38:50)
Like let’s not continue to struggle. You know, we were at a shop, a very large shop recently built submarine components and, a guy had previously fell off a ladder, like 12 feet in the air or something, you know, and we showed him a solution around all machine metrology to solve it. Yet they were reluctant for change. And it’s like, no, like this is an opportunity to change and make it better. Not because you’ve been doing the same thing over and over for the last 15 years. Like, no, I want to, I want to instill change because that change makes us more efficient, efficient increases throughput. And at the end of the day, makes us more money, which we all take home more money for. And there’s a sense of pride of that, employee owned business model that we’re trying to create, you know,
Nate Wheeler (39:33)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Falcone (39:35)
that I think people will be super excited about. And I think we’ve taken that away from manufacturing. You you look at, you look
Nate Wheeler (39:41)
Yeah, I think he subs.
Tim Falcone (39:43)
at the bowies in the world and the Pratt Winnie’s and these guys are on strike and they’re pissed because all they see is like, you know, Boeing made $15 billion last year. You’re like, well, I saw three and a half percent raise or something like that. But like, what if you didn’t like, what if like you got a bonus of like double your income because you guys work together as a team, stay late, got projects done and out the door on time and you saw the results of that. Right? Like, huge, right? That’s
Nate Wheeler (40:07)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Falcone (40:11)
what makes America great, you know, is the pride that we take in our jobs and our passion, you know? The reason we
Nate Wheeler (40:18)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (40:20)
spend how much of our lives working, we shouldn’t be passionate about what we’re doing, you know?
Nate Wheeler (40:23)
I agree. Yeah, and an ESOP is a great way to accomplish that, which I just learned about that a little bit in a previous call. This company has, I think, 1,600 employees and they have an ESOP. I wasn’t really too familiar with the concept, but you need to have a consulting firm that says how many shares you should have and how many shares you should give out every year and things like that. But it gives those employees that sense of ownership and it doesn’t mean that the owner of the company has to give away the company, but he can still maintain control. But it’s a much better way to go about it than having a union. Because the unions, it turns into a situation where the employees are trying to get as much as they can for as little. Whereas with an ESOP, they’re going to be incentivized to get
Tim Falcone (41:14)
Well, you want to hold your you want to hold your fellow coworker accountable, right?
Nate Wheeler (41:18)
Right.
Tim Falcone (41:19)
Like you want to say, you know, hey, man, like you’ve been late 15 minutes for the last 15 days every day or
Nate Wheeler (41:27)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (41:27)
like, you know, or like there was an opportunity for you to stay late and help us get those parts at the door. But you left at your normal working hours when we all stayed late, like, you know, to get this done, like you hold your hold your fellow employee accountable for their actions. Right. And
Nate Wheeler (41:41)
Right.
Tim Falcone (41:41)
I think it changes that kind of union mentality. We’re like, got the union behind me, you know? you know, like, no, we’re all here because we want to make more money. We want this to be a successful place. And we want to continue to develop processes and procedures that make our lives easier, all while increasing our bank account, right? That’s what we’re looking to do.
Nate Wheeler (42:04)
Yeah. So this facility that you’re standing up in, said St. Louis, right?
Tim Falcone (42:11)
Yes.
Nate Wheeler (42:13)
Was this an existing manufacturing business that you’re kind of applying your technology to, or is it like a brand new facility?
Tim Falcone (42:22)
No, no, we’re standing up brand spanky new building, man. 80,000
Nate Wheeler (42:27)
Okay.
Tim Falcone (42:28)
square feet in the River City area, which is just south, south of St. Louis.
Nate Wheeler (42:34)
Okay.
Tim Falcone (42:35)
Still in the St. Louis proper, but it’s on the river. But now it’s brand new facility. You we struggled with, you know, like you mentioned some of these conglomerates like buying up a bunch of shops and whatever, we struggle with that. like the problem with the shops out there that you would buy is that the technology they have, you’re really buying the customer base and not what’s in the building. Right. Cause like a lot of this stuff is dated, right? You’re like, Oh, well that’s a 25 year old machining center or you know, that, you know, a lot of the stuff’s broken or maybe doesn’t have the functionality used to, or doesn’t keep up with today’s modern manufacturing requirements. So we thought like really the only way to do this right is to stand it up from zero and build a platform, build infrastructure completely around our processes and what we’re trying to accomplish. Also, if we talk about the new manufacturing environment, those old shops are not going to attract the kind of people that we want to bring in. We want people to walk in. I don’t know, Nate, if you’ve been into rocket companies, tech companies.
Nate Wheeler (43:44)
I’ve done quite a few tours. I’ve seen some pretty antiquated shops. I’ve seen some pretty awesome ones. Yeah.
Tim Falcone (43:50)
Yeah, right. You you walk into like a cool tech company and you’re like, this is cool, man. Like
Nate Wheeler (43:55)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (43:55)
it’s awesome. And you walk into some old dingy shop, you’re like, well, this would suck to work here, you know.
Nate Wheeler (44:02)
I toured this guy’s shop. was a, you know, in much respect to him. mean, he was a Marine Corps veteran like myself, but he was Vietnam or something. Cool guy, but he wanted to sell the shop for a million bucks. And his machine, he didn’t even have any CNC machines. They’re all manual machines.
Tim Falcone (44:22)
Yeah.
Nate Wheeler (44:23)
And it’s like, you know, in his mind, it was worth this. And I’m thinking to myself, you know, cause I kicked around the idea of buying a shop for a short period of time. But I was thinking to myself, dude, nobody’s gonna pay you that kind of money for this shop. But then I’ve gone into these other ones. We have this one down in Meadville, which is about 40 minutes away from me here in Urie, called AccuTech. They’re a huge aerospace, I hesitate to even call them a machine shop, because they’re so much bigger than that. But they have this control room and there’s just all these TVs with data streams going across and all these things being tracked and alerts and it’s like, my God, like what a contrast there.
Tim Falcone (45:09)
Yeah, like that’s right. Like that’s, you know, we want to bring a younger generation to manufacturing and say, it’s okay that you didn’t go to college. You
Nate Wheeler (45:17)
Yep.
Tim Falcone (45:18)
know, I think that, you know, we talk about the trades so much lately too, and manufacturing fits right into those trades, right? Like it doesn’t matter like manufacturing, electrician, plumber, carpenter, whatever, you know, manufacturing definitely has a home in the trades. And we, and I feel like, you know, we, a lot of people invest into college and maybe for the right reasons, but sometimes for the wrong reasons and walk away and say, well, what the hell am going to do now? You know, and yeah,
Nate Wheeler (45:45)
Right. More often than not for the wrong reasons.
Tim Falcone (45:49)
right. And, and, what we want to say is like, no, come, we’re going to like, you’d like the engineering part. You like to build stuff. Like maybe, maybe you aren’t a college kid, you know, but you could be really successful in manufacturing.
Nate Wheeler (46:02)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (46:03)
And we want to enable that kind of workforce to come in. also, we have interns that work here off and on. This summer, we had a bunch of interns. And they’re all like, this is the coolest place I’ve ever interned at. All this machinery and all this technology. I think we can create an environment for kids out of high school to come in and be like, no, no, no, this is what I want to do. Maybe they’re building their own defense components and have a manufacturing facility that runs our technology. Or maybe they are just a contract manufacturer and building components, but they have all the best stuff.
Nate Wheeler (46:44)
Yep. Yep.
Tim Falcone (46:46)
And it’s an attractive place to work. It’s clean. It’s fun. You know, everybody’s got like a go-to attitude to instill change in manufacturing. like I said, I don’t think you need to be a college graduate to be successful in this industry. And what our platform is going to enable is that exactly, right? It’s going to say, no, you can come here and be successful in manufacturing and have an awesome job and have an opportunity to grow within the company. mean, we’re always going to have, you’re always going to have the people that don’t want to do more. And that’s okay. You know, you can come work at a Presidium factory and, and, and, be happy with where you’re at, but we want to encourage growth, right? Like one of people that ask why or how, or how do I do that process, man, we have a process in place for you to grow internally and go from working on the floor to being a programmer, to being a software engineer. Like we have the processes built for you. Right? And we can scale you. We can get you
Nate Wheeler (47:51)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (47:52)
up to speed.
Nate Wheeler (47:53)
Well, yeah, I mean, that’s so important. And I think a lot of shops do struggle with that kind of that advancement path, you know, especially in a smaller shop. You know, there’s not that many places to go. Right. Like there’s only 15 people there. Like how far up can you go?
Tim Falcone (48:08)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you’re not gonna own the place, right?
Nate Wheeler (48:10)
Right, right. But no, I think that’s so important and I also, you know, I really like the idea making manufacturing more accessible for these young kids. And we need to figure out some way to remove the stigma around not going to college. Because in my opinion, colleges are brainwashing institutions that do very little but turn our kids into gremlins. But that’s a whole other topic. But no, need to make it that the trades and having a skilled trade is going to be something that’s going to give you personal fulfillment. You and I both know that when you actually build something, at the end of the day, you look and you see it sitting there, it looks awesome. It makes you feel good, right? And I
Tim Falcone (48:57)
Yeah.
Nate Wheeler (48:57)
think that’s something that we should somehow advertise to our youth that it’s cool to build things. It’s cool to be involved in this type of work.
Tim Falcone (49:07)
Yeah, I mean, that’s why I spend my life here, man. I live at shop because I like to build. We’re building awesome parts throughout different sectors, and we’re building an awesome platform that’s going to enable other people to build awesome things.
Nate Wheeler (49:23)
Yep.
Tim Falcone (49:25)
I think, I guess I really believe in what we’re trying to do, and I think there’s definitely any…talent out there that wants to get into manufacturing that hasn’t had the opportunity to like really digest it right and be like no I can work here I could do this this is cool and you know we just we shouldn’t encourage our youth to get into manufacturing and and you know I think it’s the future you know I think I think I
Nate Wheeler (49:53)
Yeah, yeah. And having a really
Tim Falcone (49:56)
said the tradesmen are like the salt of the earth man you know without them like it’s so we can’t do anything, you know, so.
Nate Wheeler (50:04)
Yeah, and having a really advanced facility with robotics and technology and it’s clean, it’s not dingy, it’s going to make it a lot easier to attract kids while they’re in high school. They can see this facility, do a tour of it. They’re like, yeah, this is pretty neat. This isn’t what I thought it was at all. So no, I think it’s great. Well, I love your vision, Tim. Just from listening to you, passion about what you do, I’m sure you’re gonna be a success at whatever you do. And I’m excited for your software to be integrated with other shops that are struggling with putting all this stuff together. So I think it’s a huge benefit to them too.
Tim Falcone (50:49)
Yeah, I like that. You anytime you’re in the Colorado area, you want to come by, check out what we’re doing. Love to have you been for sure. So it’s always open door.
Nate Wheeler (50:55)
Yeah, actually, I’m going to be going out to, I’m going to be heading out to Montana, Bozeman Montana in a few weeks here for an elk hunt. And I did put in for a Colorado tag too, so maybe I’ll get that next year. But I don’t know how far would Bozeman Montana be for you?
Tim Falcone (51:19)
Oh, yeah, I mean, it’s quick flight, like, you know, it’s an hour flight, but it’s probably like a
Nate Wheeler (51:24)
Okay, you’ve hours.
Tim Falcone (51:26)
16 hour drive or something like that. Fortunately, it’s
Nate Wheeler (51:28)
Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Falcone (51:31)
far. But yeah, like anytime you’re in Colorado, man, I’d to have you in here. You know, we’ll demo some of our software to you. We’ll have you build tools, run a machine, you know, set up a part, some of the fixture, you know, we’re actually working on a pretty cool program right now that we can have somebody come in from zero, program a part, it’ll be our logo, like a book stop or something like that, know?
Nate Wheeler (51:53)
That’s awesome. Yeah
Tim Falcone (51:56)
Like program their own book stop that they could take home for us. And it’s actually a cool process where they get to realize what we’re trying to accomplish, right? So right down from programming the part, which we’ll probably end up assisting a little bit, down to building the tooling, setting it all up with the machine, running the machine, watching the part come to life, and then taking it home with us. You know, I mean, that’s what we’re trying to do, right?
Nate Wheeler (52:17)
That’s yeah, that’d be awesome. That’d be a sweet demo like at IMTS or one of the one of the trade shows too. I don’t know how long that process would take, but.
Tim Falcone (52:27)
Yeah, you know, we have like a government representative that we work with at a St. Louis and it’s Julie. So like she’s about to come out here and do that exact process with us. And she’s super pumped. You know, she’s like,
Nate Wheeler (52:38)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (52:39)
I’ve never done any of that before. I’m like, you’re about to and like
Nate Wheeler (52:41)
Get a good video.
Tim Falcone (52:42)
what to do, right? I want to say like, you don’t have to work at the gas station or you don’t have to, you know, you don’t have to have this job. There’s other jobs out there that are more fulfilling and
Nate Wheeler (52:52)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (52:53)
have more opportunity to grow in and
Nate Wheeler (52:55)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (52:55)
manufacturing is the way.
Nate Wheeler (52:57)
Yeah. No, that’s super cool. Make sure you get a nice, get a videographer there and kind of, you know, put a nice video together of the whole process when she does that.
Tim Falcone (53:07)
Yeah, yeah, no, no, it’s, it’s, we’ve been slowly trying to work on that whole process. You know, I think we’re busy, you know, we’re busy
Nate Wheeler (53:16)
Yeah.
Tim Falcone (53:17)
and we’re trying to do a million things at once. If we had 15 more people on staff, that would probably help, but we don’t. So, we build as we can, you know.
Nate Wheeler (53:25)
Yeah. Well, it sounds like you’re on a great path, but thanks a lot for coming on today, Tim. I really enjoyed what you had to say and I’m sure it was enlightening to a lot of people that have their own shops.
Tim Falcone (53:38)
Yeah, appreciate it man. Thank you for your time and hope we can look up again soon.
Nate Wheeler (53:42)
Yeah, absolutely. Stick around for just one minute.
Tim Falcone (53:44)
Okay, cheers.