Announcer: You are listening to augmented ops where manufacturing meets innovation. We highlight the transformative ideas and technologies shaping the front lines of operations. Helping you stay ahead of the curve in the rapidly evolving world of industrial tech. Your host for this episode is Eric Marrane, chief Business Officer of Tulip, the frontline operations platform.

Erik: Welcome back to augmented ops. Today's episode is pretty special. We've got not one I. But three guests, all of whom are engineers on the front lines of digital transformation, uh, all of whom are coming from very different organizations. Um, and, um, so yeah, with that, I, I think I'm gonna hand it off and let our guests introduce themselves.

Maybe Ryan, you could kick us off. Tell us a little bit about where you're coming from and the problems that you're taking on. 

Ryan: Yeah, sure thing. So my name's Ryan Infantozi and I am a systems engineer at veca, incorporated our main facilities in Pennsylvania and we do vinyl manufacturing. So a lot of the challenges that we face are trying to revolutionize an industry that has been largely paper-based for many years.

So we're trying to improve our quality testing and how we do manufacturing. Awesome. 

Erik: And Esmeralda, can you give us a quick introduction? 

Esmerelda: Yeah, sure. Hello everyone. My name is Esmeralda and I work at Stanley Black and Decker in Reynosa, Mexico as a digital transformation engineer. Black and Decker is manufacturing plant, focuses on producing industrial tools and solutions.

My role is centered around digital transformation and citizen development, where I lead the first to digitalize processes, optimize operations, and enforce teams through digital solutions. 

Erik: And what do you make at your facility? What are the products that actually get made there? 

Esmerelda: Drills, table sauce, and sanders.

Erik: So stuff that everybody listening to. This is probably used uh, in their day-to-day life. You have Esmeralda to thank for that. At least in part 

Esmerelda: probably it's the most common source. 

Erik: And Cuyler, can you give us a quick background of what are you working on and what do you produce? 

Cuyler: My name's Cuyler and I work at Agility EMS in little Canada, Minnesota, which is actually part of the Twin Cities area.

And at Agility we manufacture custom solutions. So like anybody can come to us and say, Hey, we have this electoral mechanical product that we need. Manufactured and, and we will build processes around that. And we started working with Tulip about a year ago, and we're fully onboarded now and, and really trying to transform the way that we can bring products, fully operational and as fast as possible.

Erik: So three very different operations with very different challenges. But we're, and we're gonna talk about those challenges and what you guys are doing. Before we do that though, can we talk a little bit, 'cause I think there's a lot of folks out there wondering around, you know, what is citizen development and you know, who are these people that can come in and take to these digital tools?

We've had some recent conversations on this podcast where we're seeing, and you guys are representative of this, of. The skill sets that people entering, the workforce that they have are changing in a pretty profound way. So could you give us a little bit of background before we get into the work that you're doing?

Are you guys computer science majors? Are you like, what did you study? What are you into? Why did you choose to come into manufacturing? I. 

Ryan: Yeah, sure. So I actually majored in biochemistry in college, which is totally different than what I'm doing now. But I thrive in manufacturing because I love to problem solve, and there are all kinds of different things that come up on the day-to-day that is really rewarding to solve those problems.

So I did get a, a minor. In computer science. So I do have a little bit of computer science background and I'm also kind of just a nerd, so I like to mess with electronics and different devices to see how things can communicate, but really improving the efficiency of our operation and like knowing that what I'm doing is impacting the frontline is the most rewarding part of it.

Erik: And by the way, that's like one of the best compliments you can get back here at Tulip. If somebody calls you a nerd, that's like rare error. That's a big deal around here. So plus one to the, to the nerd. 

Cuyler: Yeah. I can go next. I got a degree in materials engineering at Eau Claire in Wisconsin and I took that engineering degree and knew that I really wanted to use that to, again, problem solve, but.

What agility allowed me to do is be all the engineers at once. So, you know, I'm an electrical engineer, I'm a process engineer, I'm a product engineer. Uh, I work on the development side and really, I only took one class in programming in college and kind of had to learn the rest along the way. I. But Tulip's been really forgiving in that way, so it's been a blast just being able to take a tool that you know nothing about and then three months later be full board running at max speed.

And I don't think there's a lot of people that can take such little knowledge and then actually be able to use a tool like that so quickly. So, you know, taking the Tulip software and then spraying that around our team has really helped us in a lot of ways. Over to you. 

Esmerelda: I hold a degree in MES engineering and I also have an specialization in automation.

I'm currently pursuing a master in applied artificial intelligence, which has given understanding of data-driven decision making and is small manufacturing solutions. My professional journey is start in industrial automation where I work, designing and programming protection. I design lines for automotive and manufacturing industries, and later I transitioned into a Stanley Black and Decker.

So I start as an engineer, passionate about problem solving and process automation. Before moving into manufacturing has I already had a strong background in traditional software development that allows me to see the potential of digital solutioning in digital operations. 

Erik: So we've got backgrounds here represented from, we've got a biochemist, material science, Medtronics engineering.

Ryan, you said it well, like. When I think about why do people go into manufacturing, these are professional problem solvers. They're people who come in and just like to solve problems and that there's no one size fits all from a pedigree perspective. Like there's not that one degree. You get basically, people who are drawn to this type of environment are the people who come into manufacturing and Esmeralda.

I wanna talk a little bit about the master's degree that you're getting in applied AI in the implications that you see for your role at Stanley Black Decker. But I would say like everybody. Coming into the workforce at this point in time, into manufacturing, they all have some experience with at least the concepts of like, how does software work?

How do you apply different software tools to solve different complex systems and data problems? And I just always think it's so fascinating to hear about people's backgrounds when they choose this as a profession. Maybe we shift gears a little bit in. Talk to us a little bit about what, what are you doing day to day?

What does your role look like and how do you, as a professional problem solver, like what does that practically speaking mean? I'd be interested because you guys are coming from such different backgrounds and you're working in such different environments. Like how different are they really? I'm curious, right?

Yeah. So 

Ryan: what my day-to-day looks like is it's a lot of engaging with the production floor, so talking to the front end operator, understanding their griefs and their problems, and then taking that and. Organizing it into a way that my team can interpret and kind of prioritize and figure out where the root cause of a lot of their problems are coming from.

So we can kind of prioritize what is the most important, right? So you want to have a high impact with the shortest amount of time with how we operate, really trying to solve these decade long problems with Tulip, and it's been really, 

Erik: really good so far. Can I ask like, what's the coolest thing you've built or the coolest problem you've solved and by Cool.

I think like cool is a, is a euphemism for also most impactful maybe. I don't know. They're certainly correlated. Maybe not one to one. Yeah, so our 

Ryan: most impactful app or bread and butter is our production tracking app. So that is used to generate inventory. We have our stacking diagrams, so how we pack the material.

It'll show our major order details right in front of where. Our operators are working so that they have all the tools they need to succeed. Another example of an application that we have is a supervisor overview app or like a supervisor control panel where they can change machine states and see the performance of every line.

That ties into another section of the app where they can overview the OEE the plant is performing at, and really get an idea of how everything's running in like one quick, easy view. 

Erik: I guess same question, Cuyler. If you think about what are some of the problems that you're taking on and how are you solving these problems?

Yeah. What does that look like in the context of your operation? 

Cuyler: Sure. I was hired at Agility as a process engineer, so a lot of the problems that I solved in the first couple years at the company were taking processes that were really just in the minds of our operators and trying to capture those. Some of those processes were all the way down to new product introduction, like defining what that should look like.

Agility hasn't been in the manufacturing space for more than 25 years, and we've quickly scaled those operations. So I really think that one of the biggest, uh, challenges we've overcome has been. Being able to capture our customer's information and capture their products and how they would like those products manufactured as quickly as possible.

And that process has only grown stronger with the addition of Tulip. And now we're creating apps, you know, twice as fast as we could write a work construction. And it's all about speed when it comes to, you know, custom manufacturing. So being able to onboard a customer's product. Two months later, get that product in mass production and then six months from then do it again.

You know, we're building two or three apps a day, which is very high, I've heard, compared to some other companies that are building maybe more tracking based apps where they're tracking different processes we're trying to build. As many work instructions per day as possible. 'cause we're onboarding so many customers every single day and I'm excited about that because it allows us to scale our manufacturing a lot quicker.

That was probably the biggest problem that I've solved and that Tulip has helped us solve because speed is everything when it comes to custom manufacturing. 

Erik: Yeah, and so we've seen it. Now if we're doing vinyl extrusion, on the one hand we're doing custom manufacturing. NPI scale up. On the other hand, production tracking, it sounds like process standardization work.

Instructions on the other is Marelda. Maybe you can give us some context around what does it look like in, uh, the site where most of our favorite power tools are being produced day in, day out. 

Esmerelda: Well, a typical workday for me at Stanley revolves around digital transformation application development.

Cross-functional collaborations, depending on my priorities, they usually looks something like reviewing priorities in cafes, application development and optimization. If there is any pending updates or new features to implement, I focus on implement or the booking application. So I work on automating workflows and connections, real time data to improve.

The decision making collaborations with production and quality teams. I met with production quality and continuous improvement leaders to identify challenges and opportunities for new digital solutions. I gather user feedback to refine existing application and ensure they align with the operational needs.

And I think I could talk a little bit about one of the most impactful app that I develop, one of the most impactful projects involved replacing a manual five phase audit processes with a fully digital solution built on. The challenge was managing audits across a large facility with over 150 areas and nearly 400 trained auditors.

All using paper based method. So we need to capture manually about 10,000 audits per year. Wow. And then digitalize. So I design and implemented a tool based auditing system that streamlined the entire workflow from auditing execution to real time database utilization using Power bi. This allow teams to identify trends, track improvements, and take immediate action on the findings.

We get a lot of impressive results because Audi became more efficient. The response times improve. Thousands of kaizens improvement actions were initiated based on the real time insights. So the project was so impactful and contributed to my recognition, I think with the Golden Show Award. 

Erik: That's right.

I was gonna say we have two recipients of, of Groundbreaker awards from the last, uh, ops calling. So both Ryan and Smeralda received those. And Cuyler I hear is in close contention for, uh, the next one. This is what I hear, 2025. Let's hope. 

Esmerelda: The biggest hurdle wasn't the technical implementation, it was the resistance to change because many of the auditors were used to pay for base audits and we're a little bit hesitant about the adopting a digital solution.

So we need to overcome this and took a rather adoption approach. But right now it's working and we are getting a lot of positive response from our users. 

Erik: Yeah. That's great. You brought up a really interesting topic here, resistance to change, which is always scary. You know, we work obviously with, with, with a lot of customers.

One of my favorite stories, just recently, we were working with a customer, I think we were in Ireland, you know, and we, we were doing a workshop and the engineering team brought out some apps and said, okay, hey, here's the process, here's what we're trying to do. And our team was actually on site with them.

And it was one of these hardened chiseled operators that's been there for 20 years and was like, what? The hell is this newfangled nonsense. But the mindset is so important 'cause it's like, look, we're not here to try and force you to use this thing. We're here to give you tools to do your job better.

What are the problems that you have here? And what are the tools you need available to you to help, you know, train those that are not as experienced as you, but also give you the resources you need to be effective in the role And. The same day we went through two iterations, and at the end of the day, the team put those same apps in front of the same operator, and the guy looks at it and looks at the team and goes, these apps are savage.

You know? And so it's, the point is like, that mindset is so important. And I'm curious, as citizen developers who are out there on the front lines, how do you guys get buy-in for these crazy digital solutions that you're trying to push on, uh, experienced operators that may or may not be excited about it.

What, like how do you guys get buy-in? Because without it. You can't do anything, right? 

Cuyler: Yeah. I'd like to start, you know, I've had a lot of the same challenges that you described and part of the reason for that is, I dunno if you've ever been to the Twin Cities, but there's a, a large Hmong population in the Twin Cities.

And the challenge there is some struggle with English, you know, as a second language. And there's also a large population of Spanish speakers as well. And so there is a. A huge hurdle between going from what we as engineers describe and what is actually getting manufactured. And so finding ways to communicate effectively is very important.

And like you described, if an operator is having difficulty and dislikes what you're asking them to do. It's your responsibility as an engineer to find a way to support those operators. That's literally the job. And the best thing that we ever did was say, well, if the best way to communicate with someone on the floor isn't with words, let's make it video based and we'll show exactly how things need to be manufactured and we'll get immediate feedback from these operators because they are showing us.

How they would like to actually manufacture these products in a way that's ergonomic. And we can capture that, review that, and get their feedback. And if they don't like it 30 minutes later, we can show them version two and then keep improving. And that's the most important part, I think, is taking their input.

And all of our apps continuously take input from our operators, and within a week we can go back and take their input and turn it around and help show that we care about their thoughts and, and the way that they want the floor to look that supports the way that they think. Because not everybody's gonna learn the same way.

Not everybody takes in information identically. So it's really important to meet people where they're at. 

Ryan: Yeah, I think that's like super important to the role. All of the apps that we develop here at Becca, we have a, a feedback button where our operators can type into us and it'll generate a Jira ticket.

So we're able to do some management of those. And then we also have a, a practice here where we have a period of time after we. Launch an app where we leave it in development mode and then as these changes and requests come up, they can see them come up real time as we can go out with them and say, Hey, check out that feature I added for you.

We had you in mind here. And so they can see their feedback come to life as it comes in. 

Esmerelda: Yeah, I'm agree about the feedback. I think feedback is the most important part because I see feedback as a valuable opportunity for grow and improvement, whether it's positive or constructive, I believe it provides insight that help us to refine our skills and improve the work and deliver better results.

So to promote a cultural digital transformation and overcome the resistance to change, I usually focus on three case strategies. The first one is engagement and communication. I usually try to get involved with key stakeholders yearly in the process, explaining the why behind the chains, and demonstrating how the new system would make their work easier.

Also, educations. Hands-on training. I usually organize workshops and one-on-one training sessions where auditors and operators could interact with the new systems in a low pressure environment, making the transition smoother, and also receiving their feedback. Because at the end of the day, they are the ones who really knows the process and understand the pain points that they have, and my tragedy is demonstrating the value through quick wins.

Instead of pushing a large scale change all at once, I usually introduce small improvements and showcase yearly successes. For example, once my auditors saw how realtime analytics help them to track enact findings, my adoption increased significantly. 

Erik: Hmm. Yeah. So there's two key principles here, right?

The first is buy-in from the shop floor by listening to the shop floor, listening to the folks who are doing the work and reflecting their priorities and what they see in the digital solutions that are available to them, and, uh, as a tool to help them be more effective. And then the second is this concept.

Some companies out there have gone so far as to put it in the name of the company, but it's the agility, right? It's not the idea that you, you said it and forget it. Hey, we rolled this out once, five years ago. This is what you got. Don't bother me. But it's like, no, the idea that you're always continuously improving, and I mean really this is at, at the core we, you know, it's a core tenet of digital transformation.

Sure. But isn't it also just a core tenet of manufacturing and a core principle of lean that you celebrate. And respect the people closest to the work, people doing the work. And then you also are continuously improving your operation, looking for sources of inefficiency. So that's how you, how you guys have, regardless of industry, regardless of background.

This seems to be a common principle across all manufacturing for getting buy-in for the digital solutions that you guys are rolling out. But I'm curious. What about other departments? I mean, as a citizen developer, it's obvious that you guys make a lot of sense to deploy these digital solutions. If we only look at feedback loops and rate of iteration, uh, or agility, if you will, with respect to the shop floor.

But how do we start to think about balancing this with quality or, you know, we're gonna get to it in a moment, but what are some of the other. Groups within the organization that you guys need to partner with and get buy-in, not just the shop floor, but elsewhere in the organization. 

Cuyler: Yeah. It's really interesting that you bring that up because we've talked a lot about the shop floor and resistance to change on the shop floor, but there's resistance across an organization.

It doesn't come from the operators. That comes from everybody who, you know when there's something new and and familiar. Believing that it's possible to improve with these new solutions is important. And showing that is another challenge altogether. And like you said, if we're going into a sales department and saying, well, how can we use Tulip in a new way?

I. Is there a, a sales dashboard we can create that can cut the time it takes for you to dig around in your ERP system in half? That's a win. Is there a quality dashboard we can create or a quality tool that we can generate that displays all of our top products that they may have different challenges and maybe.

If you can get a list of, oh, these top 10 products, these need to be worked on first from a quality perspective. You know, that saves time on the quality end. And then even from the executive level, if you can get a dashboard that says, Hey, we've X, Y, and Z customer. Maybe these are your top customers. And you can say, Hey, we've had X amount of quality failures at our top customer level.

We need to take action. Maybe we need to set up. Additional support meetings with these customers. Just capturing that data is what drives an organization forward, and the faster you can capture it and analyze it, the faster you can make change. And bringing that and showing that to an entire organization is the challenge of an engineer.

I. 

Ryan: There's certainly a cultural battle, if you will, in the beginning that we had some of that at Becca, where we had this legacy MES system that everyone was kind of just used to, but it didn't allow us to innovate as quickly as we would've liked. It was centrally controlled, which is okay. We can have centrally and decently controlled things, but mainly it was this uphill battle in the beginning of trying to convince people that this was the right.

Way to go and with the high impact or really short term fixes that they're like, wow, we've had that for a while, and you fixed it in like three days. You know? And seeing the outcome of that 

Erik: helps out on the buy-in for sure. So lead with results, I guess getting ahead of myself a little bit, but there is nothing wrong with like centrally controlled systems to be clear.

And they're actually quite important, right? The tension happens somewhere between those things that should be centrally controlled and that reality of continuous improvement that exists on the shop floor. And then there's a bunch of gray space in between. And what they don't do is en enable that rapid iteration and problem solving.

So it sounds like lead with impact is what I'm hearing from Ryan. A hundred percent. 

Esmerelda: I'm agree with Ryan and with Cuyler. Absolutely working with different things. The approach is different with each one, but at the same time, I think it's the same as the operators. The main thing you need to do is focus and understand their needs.

Give them solutions for them. It doesn't matter if it's a operator on the shop floor or a quality engineer. You need to understand their needs of their work and the pain points for the department. So yeah, it was a little bit like a battle. As you said, it was a little bit hard at the beginning, but once they see how the digitalization could help them.

Could make their work easier because now they don't need to make a report manually every day, every week, or analyze by themselves the data, because now they have automated reports, get alarms when something happen. It was a pretty natural process when they feel more interested and ask for more and listen also their opinions because.

Sometimes I see a problem, but I dunno about a background when they explain me and tell me what they need and create it, because that's one of the advantage we could create quickly. Solutions, they get more and more involved. Hmm. 

Cuyler: That's a good point. The minute you start getting feedback, and it doesn't matter who it's from in the organization, but the minute someone says, Hey, can Tulip do whatever it is, that's when you know that people are starting to understand it.

That's when I start getting excited. People say, Hey, can Tulip do this weird thing I've had a problem with for five years? And you're like, yeah, it can. And that's really exciting. 

Esmerelda: Yeah, that's what I know. My app is finally working when the users start to ask me, Hey, can I get this visualization? Or Tulip can do this.

Erik: Exactly. So very clear to me how you guys are getting buy-in from the shop floor, the skillset you bring to the table, you're able to iterate very quickly and you're able to lead with that value and get buy-in laterally within the organization. That's all great. Some of the tension that's out there is people will say, wait a minute, citizen development or governance.

Right. Citizen development or at scale, scalable enterprise architectures. The reality is, as we were talking about before, you know Ryan, you said we had this centrally developed and maintained them. Yes. And that's great, right In the fact of the matter is all of that is true. That is great. But you know, there are things that should be centrally controlled, so I'm curious, what perspective can you share in terms of going from these quick wins and getting buy-in on the shop floor to No, no, no.

This is actually a scalable program across the whole of an enterprise. And I mean, as Marelda, you're coming from a massive company. You mentioned there's 400 individual auditors, and you mentioned that there's 150 different audit areas. How many people are at your facility? And that's just one facility.

There's like, I don't know how many facilities are there at SBD. 

Esmerelda: At my site, we are almost 5,000. 

Erik: So 5,000 at your site. And this is one of north of a hundred sites globally. I, I forget what the specific number is, but the point is it's huge. 

Esmerelda: It is, yes. 

Erik: And Ryan, I know you've got some wind across a few different sites and you know, I know that there's talk of doing more, but how do you guys go from.

Small localized wins and localized buy-in to enterprise-wide adoption and programs that scale and take your perspective and make it available to others that maybe even be in a different country. 

Ryan: Gotcha. Yeah, so whenever we're looking to scale, we go through a a step list of process, but we first conceptualize what the app that they're requesting is, or.

The problem statement, and we spend most of our time there. So really understanding and kind of figuring out what the nature of the problem is. That's where most of our time's spent. We follow that up with like a discovery meeting. So where we'll take that information that they give us and we'll kind of interpret it.

Really generate a kind of like a project plan for it that has the needs of the application, what they're looking to solve. So we have some metric or score to it, and we'll fill out what's called a control plan there as well, which it's basically an Excel sheet that has all of their needs and all of the inspections that they're gonna do, or the measurements that they're gonna take, what they're gonna evaluate.

We generate that so it's clear with everyone. We're all on the same page, you know? 'cause across hundreds of miles, if we didn't have that kind of system, we would lose sight of what we're trying to solve. After that, we go through a design process where we design the app and then run what's called like an alpha testing, where we'll get.

The machines that they're using and integrate those in. Just kind of vet it out on our own first, and then we'll give it to them in that beta period where they have that two weeks where any feedback that comes in, that's our top priority. And then hypercare after that, which is kind of one and the same in beta, but it'll hang out around for two weeks to a month, depending on the size of the app and the impact.

So. 

Esmerelda: I think when we discussing citizen development versus governance, for me it's important to understand that they are mutually exclusive, rather they should compliment each other. I think however, the true power of digital transformation lies in empowering people, and that's exactly where the citizen development shines.

I think citizen development have many positive things like the speed and agility that we already talk about. Democratization digital transformation, um, because citizen development enables non-technical employees to create digital solutions. I saw that every time that I make a workshop. Teach them how to make their own apps and see how excited they are about create their own solutions for their specific problems.

Because at my site it's huge. So I can attack by myself every pain point, but when I teach them and they do it by themself, we create a stronger facility. 

Cuyler: Hmm. I just wanted to add that although Agility only has one site. As far as scalability across multiple sites, the parallel at agility is scalability across multiple manufacturing processes.

You know, we manufacture over a thousand products, individual, unique products every year at our facility, and I think it's solving the same problem because. You talk about how do I find a solution that can solve the problem across a thousand products? And if you have a hundred sites, how can I solve a problem at a hundred sites versus just one site and capturing those problems and come together as a team and discovering what solution you can put in that'll make everybody's lives easier, regardless of how many sites you have.

And that can bring the team together a lot faster. 

Erik: Yeah, well said. A lot of folks that I talk to, one of the things that's top of mind for them is how do I attract and how do I retain that next generation of workforce and how do I make manufacturing sound attractive as a place they want to come and invest their careers?

And then how do I keep these people once they're here? Um, and I think you guys are three great examples of the next generation of manufacturing professionals. What advice do you have to hiring managers and the C-suite out there running? Manufacturing operations globally. What do they need to know if they want to attract and retain you and your peers?

Cuyler: The number one thing is opportunity, and that can come in a lot of different ways, whether that's training or on-the-job experience. One of the most important things that I've just heard from my colleagues and peers when applying for jobs or looking for that next step in their career. It's, if I go and work and I spend a large portion of my life working for this company, how am I going to grow in that role?

Growth is the most important aspect of our careers, especially in your young career. It sets you up for the rest of your life and getting that right foot forward in the right company that wants to support your growth is extremely important. 

Ryan: Yeah, for sure. Like investing in being open-minded and creating the opportunities for people to come in and really get that frontline experience.

Even internship programs would be good too, you know, with maybe a data science sort of side of it. If you have a centralized kind of model or something that's decentralized, taking people that are already in your facility that know the problems and they've experienced them and now giving them the opportunity to.

Solve those problems with the correct training and introduction to the tools that you're using. 

Esmerelda: Yeah. I think to attract the next generation of engineers and citizen developers, manufacturers need to shift perceptions, embrace new technologies, and create an environment that fosters innovations in continuous learning.

For me, continuous learning is truly important. So younger generations, I think, that are looking for impactful dynamic and technology driven careers and manufacturing laws. Evolve to meet these expectations. I think an advice for young professionals entering on manufacturing and digital transformation, I could say don't be afraid to start the smile.

You don't need to solve a massive problem on the one. Look for smile pain points in your environment and use them has an opportunity to apply what you know. Even a simple app or improvement can have a big impact and learn the process before change it. I think it's really important to take time to understand how things work on the shop floor, listing the operators work the process and ask question.

The best digital solution are the ones that solve real day-to-day challenge. 

Erik: Well said. Well said. You guys are professional problem solvers. Give you the tools to solve problems professionally in this context. Well said guys. Ryan, Esmeralda Cuyler, thank you so much for sharing your perspective and for taking the time.

Cuyler: Absolutely. 

Erik: I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and good luck as you continue to go forth and continuously improve your operations. Thank you. Yeah. 

Ryan: Thanks for having us on. Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you. 

Announcer: Thank you for listening to the augmented Ops podcast from Tulip Interfaces. We hope you found this week's episode informative and inspiring.

You can find the show on LinkedIn and YouTube or at tulip.co/podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating or review on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Until next time.