Meet the Manufacturers (Novo Precision)

Bill is a veteran of the lean Toyota system of world-class manufacturing. And I'm excited to learn more, not just about where he's at now, because we've done a previous podcast, but I'd like to learn more about where the company is today and where it's going in the future for his company right here in Connecticut. So Bill, welcome to the podcast.

Good to speak with you again.

It's great to have you. So let's kick it off. Let's set the scene. Tell me a little bit about you, how you got into this position and a little bit about the company and what you manufacture.

technical background, engineering background. got into Andersen in consulting, got to work in a whole bunch of different fields, got to exposed to manufacturing, loved manufacturing, so ended up focusing on manufacturing ops, joined a small Toyota spin-off called Yomo Consulting, which was based out of Connecticut Spring in Farmington.

And we worked with you know, kind of all over the world helping implement Toyota production system with Whirlpool, Harley, Dell, you know, a lot of a lot of different companies, Alcoa. so got to work with some very senior Toyota people. then ended up jumping out of there and jumped into private equity where I ran the operational improvement group of

within a private equity environment. then after that got to run a bunch of small companies and really loved running small companies. so that was like my passion. They were just you know it's just a fun environment. You can move fast, do a lot of things. so I was running within the private equity company I was running ten different companies and then decided to jump and and do it myself.

so got a lot of experience and kinda always had the dream of doing it on my own. So I found a small company in Bristol, Connecticut. I lived in Glastonbury. Got me off the the airplane. My kids were in middle school at that point in time and and got me off the road and and and back home. It's hard to believe. It's been twelve years since we started this journey here. So and it's just been

you know, great

experience of building a company here. you know, and we've kind of evolved this company quite a bit. We started with Novo Precision, we started in one facility, we kind of expanded and grew out of this facility. We grew into a facility across the street, which was our second facility. that one is you know, probably 75% full right now. And then we we added a third facility up the street.

about four years ago. and then we're building that facility out. So we're just, you know, investing in and growing a business.

Wow, so you've gone from running 10 companies to running

Yeah.

one. That must have been a transition. Tell me a little bit about what's occurred since we last spoke, which is many, many years ago now. So you've grown and expanded a great deal. What changes have you seen?

I Yep.

yeah, we've evolved. We're kind of you know, if you were to look at our company, we're sort of wide. We do a lot of different things. So our first building is the traditional part of the business, which I call wire tube and cable. So we'll either make you the product, like we make a couple million medical staples a day, or we'll make you a turnkey machine so you can make your own product.

and we do both of those things. So we've got a very technical team here, very strong engineering, a lot of different capabilities here and we've been growing what we call kind of our wire form and then our what we call our cut to length business has grown quite a bit. So we probably started with two machines way back when and by the end of this year we'll probably have

thirty machines of our own machines which we're using to make products.

that's a big growth spurt there. How many employees did you start with

We started with about eighteen and

we're about sixty five right now

Wow, one would say, know what you're doing. I think that's an incredible,

we've messed up our share

of things and other things we've done very well. so I think that's you know,

You're very humble.

You're very humble. think that's impressive in the climate we find ourselves in.

just 'cause I started running down this

road, in our second building w we do CNC machining and assembly. So we have a HVAC product, which

Gotcha.

we do for a a local company here who's been a great partner of ours, and then we do an electrical box assembly there for a company down in New Jersey, and then we machine a lot of different components.

So

so that's our second facility and then our third facility, we have a business called Novo Metal Finishing Equipment, and that kind of came with a third facility, but we acquired a great team of people up there. So what we do is equipment for like metal finishing, plating. we do a lot of the electrical components, we'll custom build plating barrels. so that kind of got us into that game. I just liked adding the plastic machining.

And then we have a new company which we're launching this fall called Novo Lean Solutions, where we are developing a line of products for operational improvement. We're doing workstations, we're doing material flow racks, we're doing digital metric stands. we have a whole line of products which we're developing and we're also have software products where we're implementing software.

For tracking production, for Andon systems, for managing inventory. so we have a whole line of products which we're coming out with, which has been two years of very hard work, but we're just launching that this fall.

that's incredible. Incredible growth since we last

spoke and over that short period of time, you know, it feels like COVID was another lifetime away, but we've been through that as

It does.

well since we last spoke. Tell me a little bit about how that was for you. Did you have any issues like with your supply chain

I

mean we tried to take advantage of that time. I mean we had to do a lot of things where we were, you know, paying people an extra day to not work. we spread out between shifts. we worked around everything and made COVID work. I mean technically we were a critical supplier, but I think the state did a pretty good job in Connecticut of

you know, and I know Colin Cooper with the governor was really good in kinda, you know, keeping manufacturing open. I mean, I still remember having these conversations about shutting down for a week and I'm like, well if we shut down for a week, you know, we're behind plus it doesn't really solve anything 'cause this thing's not going away. so we you know, we kinda came up with a bunch of creative things just to

keep operating and we were able to operate through that entire time and I would say we took advantage of that time and got a lot of critical things done from a business standpoint. So w that was that was fortunate that we were able to do that.

so thinking about after

that, since

Yeah.

I guess the end of COVID seems wild. It feels like, it really does feel like a different lifetime. What changes and evolutions have you seen, certainly in terms of innovation within the field that you specialize since then up to say mid

2026?

Well, we continue to, invest and kind of grow our products. So we've kind of gone from one engineer who was designing and doing everything, you know, now we have a team of at least six people who are all working on new products in combination with process improvements, which they're working on.

You know, we hired our first AI engineer.

So we're we're developing

was going to ask you about the AI.

a lot of these programs for lean solutions and we have a young lady who came to us from University of New Haven, who's developing a bunch of these products. it's amazing how fast she can do things. and we're using, you know, AI is something we're using quite a bit. I mean

it allows you to accelerate, you can do research, you could do competitive analysis, you can use it in a lot of different ways. You can, look at contracts, there's just a lot of different ways to leverage AI in a business. At the same time, we have like from a sales and marketing standpoint, you know, there's a lot of pressure to go to

Like where you have these robots that pop up on screen and you're not talking to customers. We've actually we've gone away from that with our sales and marketing teams because we're like, you know, people want to talk to us. And we think, you know, it's really important to develop those relationships. So we've kind of fought that automation process of using AI on our website and to be customer facing.

That's really important, isn't it? It's kind of like we went to, I guess, AI light, particularly when it comes to customer service and marketing. And now I feel like the pendulum is swinging a little bit further back. When I speak to somebody, I'd like to speak to them. I'd like to not have a conversation with a chat bot that cannot answer my questions. So it's kind of interesting your take on that.

Yeah, yeah,

very important. We started going that way, and then we've

swung we've swung hard back to talking to customers and that becomes a cross sell opportunity for us to learn more

about you know what their problems are and what they need help with.

Thinking about your workforce, talk to me a little bit about what are your biggest workforce challenges? I know back in the day, you know, we used to have a conversations with many manufacturers on this podcast and it was really heavily on workforce development. That was a really big issue. Are there any new ones? Are there any major issues that you are addressing at the moment in regards to your workforce?

think we're very fortunate where we are. obviously we try to create a great work environment. Right. we try not to lose people, right? It takes a long time to develop an engineer. It takes a long time to develop some of the technical capability which we which we have here. and we've been very fortunate, knock on wood. we've been a top workplace now for six years in a row.

and we focus on creating a really good work environment for our people. Everything's climate controlled, our shops are clean so we try to treat our people really well. We try not to overmanage our people. you know, so we try to create a good work environment. We try to promote from within. and

You know, so we've been able to do a lot of that. I've got a strong HR manager. and then we've been very fortunate. I think we're lucky in this area of Bristol. I think there's a great base of technical people here. so we've been able to continue to add really strong people to our team over the course of the last twelve years. and we're doing more with cross training.

we're integrating, different quality systems, whether it's vision or SPC and we're trying to be very progressive as a company and create a work environment that's great for our people. So fortunately we've been able to keep our core group of people. Actually from when I bought the company twelve years ago

there's only a few people who have left from that original group of eighteen that were here.

what

about the challenges?

certainly a lot

there's a lot happening in the business world right now. you know, I mean the the the state obviously the energy costs are incredibly high, right? healthcare continues to spiral.

I'm very nervous about next year, because we have

couple situations here where I know our healthcare premiums are going to go up drastically. and that's, just difficult. our state keeps voting down the ability to combine small companies and group healthcare insurance. I don't know why that is. That seems like just a crazy thing because so many other states have done that and why you wouldn't want to be business friendly.

I have no idea. but for some reason that keeps getting voted down at the state of Connecticut. so not sure why that is. But those would be my two, you know, primary things. And I've gotten to run businesses in so many different states. I think in general, Connecticut's very friendly and they try to be very proactive, you know, and they throw a lot at manufacturing to try to support manufacturing.

But I do think those two things of healthcare and energy costs are kind of the two things that jump out at me that we're not doing a great job with.

They're certainly biting and I think they're biting worldwide. That kind of brings me on to sustainability. How important for Novo is your environmental credentials and your sustainability credentials? And do you have set targets in your decision making today?

Not so much quantitative. We always try, you know, we have our principles which we try to follow and that's one of them. we try to always be smart with that. We have our largest product which we do, we were able to work with our customer and actually one of our suppliers, and we were able to go from a PFAS

disposable product to a non-PFAS. So we always have projects which we're doing, which are trying to be environmentally positive. as well which you know it that was

a pretty significant because we do, you know, between 400 and 500,000 of those a year. so and those are single use

product that gets thrown away. So getting the PFAS out of that was really important.

But we're always trying to, you know, we worked with UConn on a on a project over the course of the last couple of years to try to be more energy efficient. I have looked at solar several times and just the ROI is kind of hard to get to. you end up going into a lot of debt to

do that. so I think we've looked at it three or four times and it just has never gotten over the goal line.

just from an ROI standpoint. but we're always looking, we do you know, we do a bunch of projects where we recycle our compressor air, and when it's hot out it blows

out. When it's cool out it blows in to help heat the facility. So we're always trying to do little things to be, you know, environmentally positive.

about your customers' expectations? I guess you've had your customer base for many years now, but how are their demands and needs changing? And how is that kind of reshaping how you not just manufacture a design, but develop your products?

that is a moving, constantly moving thing, right? So and we try to be in front of our customers on a lot of those things. But you know, a company can get, sold and you know, it's a new private equity company potentially that comes in and there's different goals and objectives which they have.

So I've been trying to do a local focus where we're trying to work more with local customers just because it's much easier to manage that. And I don't want to be jumping on an airplane and flying to Texas, you know, four times a year. a lot of our focus has been on local partnerships. you know, trying to be within, I'll say a hundred and twenty miles of here.

We also have our milk runs which we run so that allows us to be very efficient and environmentally positive where we're, you know, dropping off in Rocky Hill, dropping off and picking up in Rocky Hill, dropping off and picking up in Windsor, dropping off and picking up in Springfield, dropping off and picking up in Hartford on the way back. So that gives us a huge competitive advantage from a delivery standpoint.

You know, and we're always looking and then we have another truck which we go down to New Jersey. and then I'm always trying to add different companies onto those milk runs to make it more efficient, both for our customers and for us.

Yeah,

that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. With the, you've mentioned some of your new products and the newer facility and things like that. Where do you see the biggest opportunities for growth

in the next one to three years? Say, maybe it's a new market, a new product, new business model. What do you

think the future holds?

I

have two big ones which you know we're in a process right now of we have our VP of engineering who's doing a little bit of redesigning, but we're actually doing something called modularity where we're trying to improve our equipment design to make it more flexible. And then we're also trying to add different finishing capability to our equipment.

So that I would say is the number one area where I see a lot of growth in capabilities. so that will help both our machine build as well as our what we call our cut to length, but we're doing a lot more than cut to length right now, but that's where we use our own equipment to make products for people. and then I see a large growth over in CNC machining and assembly.

And what we have there is we've developed this whole line of lean solution products, which give us a huge competitive advantage in designing and setting up very efficient assembly cells and machining cells. So we can leverage those to help us. so I think our lean solutions product that will grow significantly and then we'll also be able to grow internally what we're doing from a

manufacturing standpoint in machining and assembly.

That's

exciting. There's a lot going on there. You've really have accelerated your growth beyond anything

that I've heard before on these podcasts. I mean, it's quite remarkable what

you've done.

Well, I and the like the reason we're developing all these lean solution products is because we want to use them internally. and that gives us a huge advantage because not only are we selling a product to someone else, we're using that product every single day. Right. so

Yeah, yeah.

I think it's at a much higher level than anything in the market.

you know, as far as a workstation. We've done a lot of ergonomic studies. We've looked at this. This is a you know a better product that's on the market right now. And then same thing with our equipment, where we can engineer and make you a piece of equipment if you want to control your production. Or we can you know, make a piece of equipment here and run your production.

You know, and that gives us a a huge advantage because we're running this equipment every single day. as well as we're willing to, you know, if a customer wants to control their production, we'll make a piece of equipment

for them. it's kind of like that double cause every

customer wants something different, right?

Like you're not gonna if a company wants to control their manufacturing, right, and do it internally, we're not gonna tell them you can't do that, right? We'll sell you a machine to do that, or we'll sell you the lean solutions so you you have that solution,

right? Or if you know, a company does not want to manage production, right, but has like a product which they need to get made, we're willing to make the product for you as well.

covering all bases

there. Thinking about the next generation, so you've already increased your headcount quite significantly, certainly since the purchase. What advice would you give to the next generation? What would you be saying to young people and where are you connecting with these young people in Connecticut? Is it the tech schools? Tell me what advice you'd give them in regards to a career in manufacturing.

you know, just getting into a company and trying some of these things is fantastic. and the tech schools they've really ramped that up. So getting your foot in we've hired a bunch of kids out of the tech schools, and sometimes it works out great, and sometimes they'll come here for a couple of years and learn and then

they'll get hired by UTC, which is a success story as well, or a a larger company will kinda pull them away. but I do think it's an interesting path for a kid who likes to see things and work with their hands and you can become a tool maker here. We've got a young guy who's out of the navy here who spent

Two or three years in the Navy in their tool room and he's done fantastic here. We've got a young lady here who went she's a mechanical engineer out of RPI and went to work for one of the big aerospace companies and didn't really like it. So she's in our tool room right now and does amazing work. so we see a lot of different paths kind of coming into manufacturing.

so they're well compensated and getting into a dynamic small growing company is definitely a tremendous opportunity, I think, that some kids may overlook.

absolutely. And I think that's something we discovered, isn't it, in the previous season

of this podcast, was some of the benefits and also some of the, not the barriers as such, but some of the stigma around it have

Yeah.

gone, you know, really have been smashed. Thinking about the, I guess, the future and where you'd like to be in the future, you've got so many things happening at the same time and your growth has been exponential.

I'm always like excited six months ahead. Like I can't wait. So we have a lot of really neat projects which we're working on right now. And a lot of them I kick myself because we

decided to work on other projects which weren't nearly as impactful instead right now. So I am like really excited about what we're working on right now. so in six months it's going to be really neat. you know, I think we'll get kind of an exponential growth, you know, continued exponential growth curve here as we focus on these critical products.

I mean I'd love of a true operational for the state of Connecticut, you know, what does an assembly line look like? How do you design an assembly line? What does a machining cell look like? How do you standardized work? So I'd kinda like to be a model within Connecticut. and there's not a lot of very high level from

from my perspective, high level manufacturing operations. LeGrande wiremold is one. They've done some really nice things over there, but I kinda like to be the model for of kind of lean TPS in the state of Connecticut would be a really you know good goal for us. And I think with that comes a lot of work.

CT and the organisation and how it supports manufacturers...

across the state, you know, for our members, know, with multiple events, whether it be happy hours or special interest groups, there's so many things going on within the organization. How has it benefited you and the company?

I've gotten more involved. I just joined the board. you know, it seems like Mike and Kate are doing a great job, they definitely dialed things up with the happy hours and with the, you know, I think it's great. I mean, I love the group of manufacturers in Connecticut. It's so many great people that are in manufacturing and that own manufacturing companies.

So I'm in the manufacturing C T network group, which Jamie runs, which does a great job. you know, and certainly sales and I've just met a lot of people that we now do business with or do business for, you know, you start getting referrals. so from a business standpoint, being a manufacturing C T's been a been a very positive thing.

and every time I meet different manufacturing leaders I always enjoy it. so lot of organizations. I'm a little bit critical of that. There seems to be too many organizations and there almost needs to be a little bit of consolidation in

Yeah.

in number of organizations because you can only go to so many golf tournaments, you can only pay

you know, so many annual fees, you can only go to so many Christmas parties. but I think manufacturing C T

is one that most manufacturers should be part of. and the product continues getting better.

it's definitely a heritage organization that works hard to support local and state manufacturers. That's pretty much all we've got time for for this episode.

Bill, it's always a privilege talking to you. I always have such good fun and it's fantastic to hear what you're getting up to and the development from when we last spoke to now. I can't wait to reconnect for 3.0.

Give us three years.

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