30: Pride, Passion, and Purpose in Machining
Manufacturing Transformed: Real Shops, Real Stories
Release Date: 05/28/2025
36: Accidental Machine Shop Owner-Dan Fifer with Lane4 Precision
Manufacturing Transformed: Real Shops, Real Stories
Dan Fifer, Founder of Lane4 Precision, shares his unconventional journey into manufacturing after a 20-year career in medical device engineering. Frustrated by long lead times in R&D, he set out to build a high-performance machine shop to support fast-paced development cycles. Despite having no prior machining experience, he took a leap of faith, selling his house to buy a Citizen L20 Swiss screw machine after learning his parts required that level of precision. Launching the shop was a risk, but momentum grew quickly. Dan started part-time while still working at his previous job and...
info_outline
35: Hard for the Right Reasons - Paramount Machine
Manufacturing Transformed: Real Shops, Real Stories
Paramount Machine, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a well-established and highly diversified machine shop with around 70 employees and a wide range of machining capabilities. They specialize in CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machine work, including complex operations such as multi-axis and five-axis machining, and serve multiple industries, particularly the medical, defense, and x-ray equipment manufacturing sectors. John Rausch is the general manager at Paramount Machine with a background in machine tool sales, while Eric Van Orden, the founder’s son, started from the ground up and now...
info_outline
34: A Dream Come True - ERP, QMS & MES in One with Gioni Bianchini
Manufacturing Transformed: Real Shops, Real Stories
End 2 End Manufacturing didn’t start with high-tech machines or enterprise systems. It began as a contract welding shop focused on responsiveness, trust, and doing right by the customer. As the company grew, adding CNC machining, design, and prototyping capabilities, it became clear that tribal knowledge and whiteboards couldn’t sustain the pace. That’s where Gioni Bianchini, General Manager, saw an opportunity for real change. In this episode, Gioni Bianchini, the General Manager at End 2 End Manufacturing, shares the story of that transformation, how a lean but ambitious team...
info_outline
33: 4x Growth in 1.5 Years at Serbin Machining
Manufacturing Transformed: Real Shops, Real Stories
Shops can lose money quietly due to missed deadlines, rushed shipping, and confusion that no one wants to admit. The real issue is often buried in scattered paper records and knowledge locked in one person’s head. It feels normal until survival is at risk. At Serbin Machining, there was no pretending things would improve on their own. New owners saw the chaos immediately and decided to invest in ProShop ERP before even closing the deal. The goal was to replace guesswork with clear, live tracking of every job. Paper records and disconnected spreadsheets were out. Instead, the team could see...
info_outline
32: Designing and Growing an Ideal Machine Shop with Tim Rousseau
Manufacturing Transformed: Real Shops, Real Stories
Most shop owners don’t realize how much the structure and feel of their shop impact everything, including employee morale, customer trust, and long-term growth. Caught up in production chaos, they overlook the deeper issues holding them back: clunky systems, reactive decision-making, and a culture built on fear rather than trust. Tim Rousseau changed all that. He built Above All CNC to be clean, safe, and forward-thinking intentionally. His big shift? Ditching paper and guesswork for ProShop ERP. It gave his growing shop the structure it needed to handle complexity without the stress. Now,...
info_outline
31: Life Changing Transformation with Perry Kuehn of K Tooling
Manufacturing Transformed: Real Shops, Real Stories
Most shop owners don’t realize it, but the way they lead their team and the systems they use may be quietly holding them back. In this episode, we hear from Perry Kuehn of K Tooling, a shop owner with decades of experience who thought his business was running fine… until it nearly ran off the rails. What followed was a transformation that reshaped his culture, workflow, and client relationships. And it started with one bold decision. At first, Perry was focused on growth: new machines, new buildings, new customers. But under the surface, delivery dates were slipping, team members were...
info_outline
30: Pride, Passion, and Purpose in Machining
Manufacturing Transformed: Real Shops, Real Stories
Some machine shop owners come into the industry late. Adam Verdon was born into it. From shredding paper in the office as a toddler to operating machines as a teenager, Adam grew up at G.V. Industries, the precision machining company his father founded in 1978 after returning from Vietnam. Today, he’s not just leading the company, he’s reshaping it. With a deep respect for GV’s history and a clear vision for its future, Adam set out to modernize the shop from the inside out. That meant more than swapping paper travelers for terminals or spreadsheets for software. It meant earning trust,...
info_outline
29. Mold Making, Skilled Trades & ProShop
Manufacturing Transformed: Real Shops, Real Stories
Plenty of people still picture manufacturing as dark, dirty, and dangerous. That image sticks, even though the real day-to-day inside many shops couldn’t look more different. But when perception lags behind reality, it’s no wonder few young people see themselves in roles like toolmaker or machinist. Darryl Gratrix didn’t grow up knowing he’d land in the trades. He went the university route first. Nearly three decades into his career today, he's running production at Molded Precision Components and doing everything he can to ensure the next generation sees what’s possible. That...
info_outline
28. Why "Good Enough" Systems Are Quietly Killing Your Shop’s Growth
Manufacturing Transformed: Real Shops, Real Stories
Shop owners are so deep in the daily grind that they don’t see how outdated systems are quietly setting limits on their business. When processes feel "good enough," it’s easy to miss how much time, money, and opportunity are leaking out of a business every day. Ben Dunn didn’t come from machining, he came from hospital administration. And that fresh perspective made it impossible for him to ignore the old habits inside the shop he acquired. Walking into a company still running on a DOS-based computer and stacks of paper, he saw what longtime owners sometimes can’t: without a clear...
info_outline
27. Dedicated to Improvement - Andy Reinwald at Ripley Machine
Manufacturing Transformed: Real Shops, Real Stories
Running a shop often means wearing every hat and holding every answer. For Andy Reinwald at Ripley Machine, that translated to years of nonstop work, nearly no time off, and the weight of every open order living in his head. It was sustainable until it wasn’t. Things came to a head after a rough year in 2016. Revenue was slipping, customer service was lagging, and the company was running on outdated systems. Andy knew he couldn’t keep leading the shop this way and expect different results. That realization kicked off a steady climb. Andy pursued ISO certification, leaned into lean...
info_outlineSome machine shop owners come into the industry late. Adam Verdon was born into it.
From shredding paper in the office as a toddler to operating machines as a teenager, Adam grew up at G.V. Industries, the precision machining company his father founded in 1978 after returning from Vietnam. Today, he’s not just leading the company, he’s reshaping it.
With a deep respect for GV’s history and a clear vision for its future, Adam set out to modernize the shop from the inside out. That meant more than swapping paper travelers for terminals or spreadsheets for software. It meant earning trust, building buy-in, and creating a culture where machinists and their ideas matter.
When the team embraced ProShop ERP, they didn’t just get a new system. They got visibility, clarity, and ownership. Tribal knowledge became shared knowledge. Workflow friction disappeared. And the change didn’t come through top-down mandates, it came from listening.
This episode is about more than digital transformation. It’s about what happens when the next generation takes the wheel and drives with both head and heart.
LinkedIn - Adam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-verdon-6b4292267
G.V. Industries - gvindustries.biz
Audio and Video Production and Show Notes by - PODCAST FAST TRACK