Always nice to get a little postitive press.

http://www.metromodemedia.com/innovationnews/pattiengineering0107.aspx

Patti Engineering goes from 25 to 33 people in 2 years

I am pretty proud of the fact that Patti Engineering was recently published in Control Engineering Magazine. The article is about an automated system we did for Ancor in Troy, Michigan. The system packages Federally Mandated Vehicle Information Labels for all Ford Vehicles sold in North America. You can check the article out yourself:

http://www.controleng.com/article/CA6620339.html

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In May 2006, I first heard Alan Beaulieu speak at the annual Control Systems Integrators Association (CSIA) conference. During the Florida-based conference, Alan remarked that the nation was in a one-state recession, and jokingly advised those from Michigan not to return home. That drew a hearty laugh from my fellow integrators and a couple of teasing smiles my way. I have since become a big fan of Alan’s and would recommend that business owners subscribe to his monthly analysis newsletter (www.ecotrends.org).

Beaulieu predicted back then that the rest of the country would join Michigan in a recession in 2008 and that it would be a pretty deep one – unlike any in the past 30 years. True to his prediction, the country has joined Michigan in the recession and there seems to be a reaction of panic across the nation. Beaulieu also has said that if you think 2008 is bad, wait until you experience 2009!

The politicians in Washington think that if they throw enough money at the financial industry, the recession will go away. Again according to Beaulieu, their moves will only act to prolong the downturn and hamper our children with a debt that they will have a hard time repaying.

Having seven years of experience with a recession, here are my tips on how you can cope with it:

• Do not feel sorry for yourself! Your business can be nimble enough to survive the downturn and even prosper. Many of your competitors will go away. With the banking industry being so tight, there is very little capital for startups. When the economy turns around (and it will) you will be ready!
• Do not look at your 401(k) and/or IRA statements. They will only depress you. If you have not moved them to cash yet, you are probably too late.
• Keep making your monthly mortgage payments and do not think about the shrinking equity in your house. Housing lead the recession in and prices have probably hit the bottom.
• If you own a business, be very careful who you work for. Nothing is more brutal for your business then to have a big collectable for a customer who claims Chapter-11, which ensures you only pennies on the dollar. Get as much money up front and give companies on shaky ground to your competitors.
• Do not skimp on sales and marketing. It is even more important in bad times to get in front of existing and potential customers.
• Do not listen to the mainstream media. The economy will come back. According to Beaulieu, mid-2010 will bring new signs of economic growth. He is very positive about America’s prospects over the next 40 years and I couldn’t agree with him more.

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Last weekend, I attended the 15th annual Control Systems Integrators Association (CSIA) Conference in Savannah, Georgia. Patti Engineering staff has attended 12 of these conferences missing only one since 1996. The organization was started with a monthly newsletter prepared by Charlie Bergman in 1989 that targeted control systems integration (CSI) companies. Charlie, who retired from Bailey Controls, organized a conference with about a dozen companies in 1994 at Wrightsville Beach, NC. The 2008 conference had more than 150 companies represented as the organization has grown in excess of 325 companies.

The conference is a great way to remove yourself from the day-to-day operations and take a 30,000 foot view of your company. Some people are hesitant to go to the conference, feeling that they will lose a competitive advantage by talking to their competition. I look at it as talking with my peers.

There are enough industries and niches that there is plenty of CSI work out there. At one time, controls were used strictly in manufacturing facilities, but now you see application of control systems in amusement parks, farms, libraries, police departments, distribution centers, municipal systems and energy management. Add to this, the line between I/O electrical controls and information systems has blurred.

In 1997, the CSIA released the “Best Practices and Benchmarks” publication. In 2001, the CSIA started auditing companies against this standard to verify that its certified member companies are implementing these best practices. Patti Engineering was one of the early CSIA companies to be certified and were recertified in 2006 (CSIA requires recertification every 3 years).

CSIA has also been particularly helpful with our insurance and legal matters. For insurance, the CSIA has pooled about 70 members to a common broker and carrier. This has helped ensure that the member companies are properly insured. In the legal realm, Mark Voigtmann, of Baker Daniels, has given a great presentation at each annual conference and offered many companies (including Patti Engineering) outstanding legal advice. He has helped the membership with many terms, conditions, and contract issues.

I look forward to the 2009 conference in Naples, Florida so I can catch up with all my peers who face the same challenges as Patti Engineering. I also look forward to the great list of speakers that will be invited. The CSIA is helping to raise the bar for the control systems integration field.

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I am a season ticket holder for the Tigers and love to give our employees and customers the opportunity to take in a game. I also love the sport myself. As a geek, I can study baseball statistics until my head spins, but so much of the game cannot be explained statistically. So much of winning and losing comes down to the details (good defense, throwing out a runner at home, taking an extra base in a key situation).

Paying attention to details is what separates the great organizations. That pertains to baseball and it pertains to business. Dave Dombrowski, president and CEO of the Detroit Tigers, is a leader who makes sure that his organization pays attention to the details. I have an interesting story that highlights what kind of organization he runs.

I sent the following e-mail to Dave Dombrowski last July 9th:

Dave, My name is Sam Hoff, I have had season tickets for the last 10 years. I really enjoy having access to the Tiger Club and the Tiger Den Lounge. There are some great pictures from the Tigers Past on the South Wall of the Tiger Den Lounge. Unfortunately there is no way to identify the pictures on this wall. I recognize Ty Cobb and Hank Greenberg, but beyond that I am pretty well lost. I am sure most people who attend the park are even more lost than me. I have a couple of questions:

• Are there presently any plans to put identifiers on these pictures?
• If there are no plans, would you support it if I helped to organize an effort to do this?
• Do you have any contacts at the Mayo Smith Society, or other Historians who would be a good resource for such an effort?

Much to my surprise, he answered the e-mail the same day:

Thank you for the note and comments. Presently, there have been no plans to put the names on the pictures. However, we will be glad to review the request and see if we can make this happen.
 

The fact that he actually answered my e-mail was a shock. The bigger shock was when I arrived at the park Monday for Tigers’ Opening Day and noticed that every picture along the south wall of the Tiger Den Lounge had a professionally engraved placard noting the player’s name as well as the years he played for the Tigers.

One person outside his organization came up with an idea and mentioned it once. He obviously reviewed it within his organization and figured it was a worthwhile idea and got it done. Hats off to Dave Dombrowski, he obviously would be successful in whatever organization he ran. Hopefully, his organization (and the City of Detroit) is rewarded with a world championship in the near future.

Background: 

In 1964 IBM released the System/360 which was the first “large” family of computers to use interchangeable software and peripheral equipment. I believe this was the birth of the modern day I.T. department.

In 1969 Modicon introduced the “084″ PLC, this was the birth of modern programming based operations engineering.

Ever since then there has been a war between I.T. and operations engineering. If a company is to survive the in the 21st century, that war has to end!

Personal History: 

In the late 80’s, I was a Co-op student and a young engineer working at General Motors Truck and Bus in Baltimore, MD. At that time, I fell in love with plant floor control systems. Being assigned to the Body Shop was lots of fun as the place was full of Cincinnati Milacron Hydraulic Robots, Allen-Bradley PLC-2’s, and other automation. I learned tons about floor level control systems.

About the same time I started, Ross Perot’s Electronic Data Systems (EDS) was purchased by GM. EDS supported the front office business systems at the Plant. They would occasionally make the 1/2 mile walk from the front office to the Body Shop. The EDS people would look like fish out of water with their 3-peice suits and total lack of understanding of automation and production systems. We did not relate with the front office I.T. people and they did not relate to us plant rats.

None of the production systems in the Body Shop had any ties to the front office business systems.  Paper manifests were used for scheduling and quality control was done with a clipboard. Somehow we were able to crank out 250,000 M-Vans a year and make the General some money in those days.

Today:

Today, the smart manufacturers and distributors realize that I.T. and Operations must work seamlessly.  The I.T. people must be cognizant of the challenges the operations people face (multi-shift operations, little downtime, high turnover and uneducated workforce). The operations people must also be cognizant of the I.T. challenges (need for change control, thorough testing, task prioritization, many systems interacting together).

If an operational process is running efficiently, it will be a paperless process, and production information and results will be available instantaneously. This creates the real time information that allows management, quality, scheduling, and shipping to improve.

My business, Patti Engineering, has defined itself as a company that can work with both I.T. as well as operations. We can program the most complicated real-time control applications on the floor, but we can also do database design for enterprise wide data tracking systems. The concept of I.T. and operations engineering working together synchronously is a brave new concept for many companies. But if those companies want to survive into the 21st century, they need to get on board and end the war.

On Memorial Day weekend in 2000, Patti and I went on a weekend trip to Charlotte, NC to watch the Coca Cola 600 (Nascar). Thanks to some airline problems, we arrived in Charlotte without our luggage.

Because we need some clothes for the next day and it was late in the evening, we went to the only place open, a Wal-Mart. I remember thinking at the time of purchase how nice the clothes looked and what a cheap price I had paid for the outfit (a golf shirt and khaki pants).

The outfit did not last me through Labor Day. After two washings the shirt was faded and frayed and the pants had holes worn in them. So in the end I got a good looking outfit for $25 that lasted 2 months.

I could of bought a nice Ashworth Shirt and a pair of Dockers Khaki Pants for $125. These items typically last me about 3 years. To emphasize my point, let’s assume that they only last 2 years.

So for the Wal-Mart outfit, my cost was $12.50/month. For the more expensive outfit, my cost is $5.22/month. Even if I the Wal-Mart outfit last 3 months, my cost is still 45% more than the expensive outfit.

I sometimes have a customer call me to complain about our hourly rate. They say they can get a cheaper rate elsewhere (which no doubt, they can). They will pay $50/hour to some guy working out of his garage who will take 1000 hours to complete a job. Often, even if this completes the job, he will not be able to be found in 6 months time. 

Are they getting a better value when we will take only 400 hours to complete the job (and yes – we will comlete the job) and will be around for any service, upgrade, or other related issues that may come up in the future?

June 3, 1991 was the official first day of business for Patti Engineering (Actually it was first called “Patti Engineering Services”, but the last word was officially dropped when we incorporated in 1995).

I started as a solo-shooter contractor at GMFanuc Robotics (later, Fanuc bought out GM’s half, so today it is Fanuc Robotics). I had a lot of knowledge on a product called the Smart Screen (by Total Control Products) having written my senior thesis on the product and later working for the company for 9 months.  Fanuc had just standardized on using the TCP Smart Screen in their original PAINTWorks System. 1991 was a slow time and Fanuc did not have any openings at the time, so Don Kijek and Gordy Geheb (both still Fanuc employees) encouraged me to start up my own business so that they could utilize my talents.

I figured when I started Patti Engineering it would last me through the summer until I could find a permanent job. 16 years later, I am still working that summer job.

Ok, everyone is supposed to have a blog so I have asked my superstar I.T. guy, Ed, to set one up for me. First of all I will establish some rules:

• I will not talk politics for fear that I will alienate 50% or more of the potential readers. I love to talk, discuss, and debate politics. I love discussing and debating with people who have different views than I do on political issues. Unfortunately, it seems like too many times on 24 hour news channels, it is just a game of which side of an issue can scream louder and who can catch who with a good sound bite
• I will not discuss religion. Once again there all different views on religion and I do not want to force mine on anyone. I think the main rules I try to live my life by are to be honest with everyone I encounter and to treat others the same way I would like to be treated.

Now a little about myself:

• I grew up in a town called New Windsor, MD. It was a rural community and my Dad’s family was mostly farmers. I spent a few summers working on my uncle’s farm.
• I loved automobiles and had the opportunity to read “Iacocca: An Autobiography” in 1984. I loved the book and it inspired me to want to work in the Automotive Industry. After studying colleges, I decided to attend GMI (formerly General Motors Institute, now Kettering University, www.kettering.edu). I co-oped with General Motors at the Assembly Plant in Baltimore, MD (now since razed).
• At GM I fell in love with electrical controls. There was nothing cooler than troubleshooting and improving automated production systems.
• At GMI I fell in love with Patti Fridline, who has been my wife for the past 16 years and happens to have a great engineering company named after her.
• I made a mistake (at the time) by leaving GM for a much smaller company that sold HMI’s. There is a long story involved, but suffice it to say that I was looking for a job and floated my resume in June 1991 to Don Kijek at Fanuc Robotics. Don had no openings but knew that I had specific knowledge that he could use. At his request, I started Patti Engineering to keep myself busy until I could find a permanent job.
• After working as a solo shooter for 2.5 years, in 1994 started hiring employees and moved into a leased light industrial space in Rochester Hills, MI.
• In 1995 I hired Dave Foster, who also attended GMI. Dave is a lot smarter than me and he is the VP of engineering for Patti Engineering.
• Also in 1995 I had the best day in my life when my daughter Payton was born.
• In 1997 I hired Ken Kutchek. Ken is a lot more organized than I am and is the VP of operations for Patti.
• In 2000, we moved into our location to 2110 East Walton Blvd, Auburn Hills, MI.
• In 2002 we did the controls on an automated sortation system for Forever21 (www.forever21.com) in Los Angeles, CA. This was our 1st project of any significance outside the automotive industry.
• In 2002 I had my other best day in my life when my son Sammy was born.
• In 2005 we did the controls and warehouse information systems for the embroidery and distribution for Ashworth, Inc. (www.ashworthinc.com) in
  Oceanside, CA. This has been our largest project to date (over 3m).
• In 2006 we developed the controls and software for the a weapon and asset management system used in law enforcement. Dave and myself have an ownership stake in the startup company, www.leidproducts.com.
• In 2007 we started to provide the controls and software for the updated version of the American Locker (www.americanlocker.com) ECBU and Compu-Lok products which are electronically controlled locker units that are now easily administered via a web interface.

I love sports, especially baseball. I grew up a big Orioles fan, but after 16 years in Michigan I am now a Tigers fan. I have had season tickets to the Tigers since 1998. I saw a LOT of bad baseball up until 2006. But I still loved going to the games. Now going to a Tiger’s game is awesome.

That’s it in a nutshell about me. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail me at shoff@pattieng.com.