Speaker 1 00:00:05 Welcome to the Clear Impact Podcast, brought to you by P G T I University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Connor and I am your host. Good afternoon. We are here on the Clear Impact Podcast and we are doing a series called Executive Updates and we wanted to reach out to Mark Yandell who spoke with us last year. And so welcome back to the podcast. Mark.
Speaker 2 00:00:32 Good morning, Sherry. It's morning where I am. Yeah, not afternoon yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:00:36 You're in California today, so
Speaker 2 00:00:39 I am. I'm at Amlin today.
Speaker 1 00:00:41 I love that I don't have to wait for you to come to Venice to record with you.
Speaker 2 00:00:46 I appreciate you taking the time to do it remotely. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:00:49 Right back at you. So last year we had a chance to meet and we were recorded an episode in our Head West with US series. And since then there've been a few changes and that's part of the reason for this series is we wanted to update people. And so you've had a role change and so can you give us a brief overview of your current responsibilities?
Speaker 2 00:01:08 Yeah. I've been afforded the opportunity to now become the president of operations for the Western Division. I've pretty fortunate to be able to have that right now. I have oversight of Western Lin, C r I and I also help out with Martin as well. Really, I'm looking after the safety production, delivery service, maintenance, all the above for those locations and really having a lot of fun doing it. The responsibilities that I took on here at Lin, I'm at Amlin today actually, you know, is really getting how can we service our customer better, shorten lead times and similarly, what we're doing through in Venice today, rearranging the plant and what we did at Western, rearranging the plant so that we can really service our customer better and get them shorter lead times and higher quality products and keeping our people safe while doing it.
Speaker 1 00:01:54 That's an awesome amount of responsibility. And I know you're a fabulous leader and the people that work underneath you have appreciated your leadership and your connection with them, so I'm sure it, it's going well. So we've had continued challenges with supply chain and labor and a lot of areas of the business. Are these similar for Western? And if so, or if not, what are the challenges and how is your team overcoming those?
Speaker 2 00:02:17 You know, we went through some supply chain issues. The entire Western division went through some supply chain issues last year and the prior year as we went through covid. Really what it came about was empowering our team to really hold our vendors accountable for what they promised us. And I have to tell you, my team has done a fantastic job. Our team has done a fantastic job out here when it comes to aluminum supply, vinyl supply, glass supply. The teams work really closely with our suppliers to hold them accountable for what they've said they supplied to us. It didn't go without having some tough conversations along the way, but everybody really was up for the challenge. And what happened was we started looking out, instead of looking back and what was happening, and I'll give you an example at Western when it comes to supply chain, we would react on the day of the back order.
Speaker 2 00:03:10 Instead of looking out eight weeks, what problems are we gonna have eight weeks down the road. And being proactive to that and really, you know, with Craig and Danny and their team from a supply chain standpoint really started to get ahead of that. And we brought the same thing here to Amlin, was to be able to say, let's look out forward instead of trying to be reactive. We're still going through some of that. We still have some challenges with vinyl, but overall our supply chain is really smoothed out from where we were. Hardware was a bit of a problem for us as well, but we got through that working really closely with our vendors and having our team really push our vendors to be better. Just like we push ourselves to get better every day. We had to push our vendors to get better and better.
Speaker 1 00:03:52 Yeah, Jeff Schellinger recorded with me actually earlier today and we talked a little bit about those vendor relationships and how valuable and important it is to really work together on those kinds of things. So
Speaker 2 00:04:04 It's incredibly important when we look at it, how do we make sure that we want to build that relationship. It's really is a partnership and a relationship with our vendor to say, how do we improve, how do we get better? And having those tough conversations to be able to say, you didn't deliver what you said you were gonna deliver, and why didn't you do it? And what are you gonna do to stop that in the future and hold them accountable for it. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:04:27 That's important. I mean, cuz that's what our dealers are doing that for us too. Like, Hey, you guys blew the order, or you know, you were five days later, whatever. And so we've been on the other side of that conversation as well. So it's a chain. It all starts somewhere and then somewhere, so we're in the middle.
Speaker 2 00:04:41 Yeah. Cuz our customers don't let us off Easy
Speaker 1 00:04:43 <laugh>. No.
Speaker 2 00:04:44 So it's fun to watch. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:04:46 So we were out there last year in Phoenix and the additional facility for Western was just beginning to open and there was equipment running and there was still some new things coming in and some remodeling and finagling around the new space. What can you tell us about that new facility and what does that mean for your customer base in Phoenix?
Speaker 2 00:05:08 That's a great question. So our new facility is 2150. It's the number of the building. We have about 80,000 square feet that we've added to our manufacturing space there. And what it really does is it allows us to increase our window capacity, production capacity. So now 2200 is our door plant in 2150 is our window plant. And really what we've been able to do is to improve safety. We've been very intentional about our quality improvements. We've been intentional about our on-time delivery improvements. Right now I think we're running at about 97% on-time delivery, which is phenomenal for us. We're pretty proud of that. But this facility really has, we've tried to make it look exactly like 2200. So when you walk into the lunchroom in 2150, it looks exactly the same as 2200 when you walk out in the shop floor. The racking all matches, the cantilever racking matches, the railings match 2200.
Speaker 2 00:06:02 We wanted our team members to really feel like they're still part of Western to do that. So what that means for the customer as we go through that is that we have an improved quality product. We have it on time, we have it in full to them. It's really allowed us to expand our horizons from 2150, as you mentioned, we had it kind of torn apart. So now we have a conference center available to us there. So we had customers come in from Houston, from Texas and Houston and Austin that came in and we had our conference center. They were able to do product presentations. So it's an interactive space. We have Martin Garage doors installed there. We have the Western product installed, so you can see the Martin product right next to the Western product. And it's a pretty cool space and we're continuing to develop that space. We're continuing to develop it for our team members. We're in the midst right this year of putting in an onsite clinic so that our team members and their families can come and use that onsite clinic. Instead of having to leave to go to the doctor, they can use the onsite clinic. And then next year we're gonna finish our gym that we have in place at 2150. So it's allowed us to do a lot of different things.
Speaker 1 00:07:14 Be sure to tune in for upcoming episodes to help you understand the fenestration industry, what you need to know when buying windows and doors and other related topics. You can find out more about
[email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook and LinkedIn. Yeah, we enjoy that perk, both of those perks here in Venice and it's amazing, like how much time that really does save. Not having to drive to a doctor's appointment and then sit and wait, you know, they're very efficient, they're quick. So that's awesome for you guys. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:07:44 We're excited about it.
Speaker 1 00:07:45 Yeah, and I would imagine separating the doors and the windows gives you some production efficiencies.
Speaker 2 00:07:50 It does. What we've been able to do is our window line when it was at 2200 was a single window line. So we sent down our operable and our fixed windows down one line. It's allowed us to split that off and now we have an operable window line and we have a fixed window line and we're able to get much more efficiency going through there. We're able to build now on a single shift where we were building on two shifts before.
Speaker 1 00:08:11 Oh wow. That's awesome. So you're at Lin today, and I have not been out there yet, but recently we have launched some training materials for Lin, and so we have product courses and associate level certifications for Catalina Panoramic and Delmar Malibu. Coronado goes up probably in the next couple of weeks and then Malibu will be not far behind it. And so I'm getting acquainted with the Alin line. What can you share with us about Alin? Not
Speaker 2 00:08:41 To go too far off track, but it's kind of a funny story with Lin when in 2019 I was offered a job here at Lin, the vice president of manufacturing for them, and I turned them down to go somewhere else and then I ended up back here. So I think it's awesome that I'm able to make it full circle with them because I really believe in the products that Amlin has, the quality of the products they produce is phenomenal. And the reason they're able to produce such high quality products is because the people here, the people here really care day in and day out about what they're doing. The floor leadership group is phenomenal. They've worked really closely with the people on the floor and being able to really drive that culture that we have of the team man when it's just phenomenal to watch. There're sponges when we talk about learning. The people here they'll drink in and all the knowledge you can give them, they'll do it. In fact, I'm heading out here shortly to do a at two o'clock to do a training on theories of constraint with them. I'll tell you, the quality of the product is really reflective of the quality of the people that we have here.
Speaker 1 00:09:42 That's excellent. Yeah. Eric and I spoke about the theory of constraint, an earlier podcast I think is gonna post in the next couple of weeks, but he gave a great explanation. What that is is basically instead of the weakest link of a chain being the overall strength, it's the slowest part of the process that needs to be evaluated and then reevaluated and then reevaluated. So
Speaker 2 00:10:05 Yes, it's a continual evaluation of that same process to make sure that it is no longer the constraint or the Herbie as it's called.
Speaker 1 00:10:14 I don't know what that means. What is that term,
Speaker 2 00:10:16 Herbie? So if you go through your constraint on the book, the goal, Herbie is on a walk. They do a hike and Herby is the slowest person on the hike without giving away too much. So,
Speaker 1 00:10:27 Okay. So after we finish lan, after our team gets done with the LAN content, we're hoping to tackle some of the Martin educational needs. And so what would you like to share about our newest family member?
Speaker 2 00:10:41 Martin is, uh, kind of an interesting story. They're a family owned, family operated garage door business that's really come into the new age, if you will. And what they're striving for today is to put an inline process in place to be able to have a garage door in three days or less. So when you order your garage door through their website, it automatically goes into their configuration process. But the configuration process they go through is amazing to be able to see how they can take the configuration of the garage door that the customer wants and be able to put it right into manufacturing. They're not a hundred percent there yet, but that is such a really cool thing to watch. And I would say too, that the people there are strong, really strong. There's some good folks that really wanna make this business grow and grow and grow, and we're excited about that with them.
Speaker 1 00:11:30 Yeah, because they're international, right? They're not just national, they're international. Correct. That's exciting. The
Speaker 2 00:11:36 Only thing I would tell you go to Salt Lake in the summertime. Oh yeah. If you're a warm weather person,
Speaker 1 00:11:42 <laugh>. I generally don't travel north between November one and May one, because I don't like winter. So yeah, I'm hoping to hit Alan maybe later this fall. And then, I don't know, we'll see if maybe next year for Martin. I haven't gotten there yet, but anyway, yeah, I'm excited to learn more about that and that'll stretch my horizons as well as, you know, be able to provide some content for them and lend the support that we offer to the other brands to them as well.
Speaker 2 00:12:06 Yeah, what we've really tried to look at with Martin when we look is the synergies between Martin Western and Amlin, and how can we provide that product to our end customer, whether it's a dealer or builder. We know you're putting in a garage door today, or if you're renovating your house, putting new windows in your house, what's, what about putting a new garage door in as well? So having that rounded out family of products is really something that we're trying to leverage here as much as we can.
Speaker 1 00:12:33 Yeah, it's a nice compliment for sure. Yeah. All right. Well, is there anything else you wanna share? Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:12:38 What I would say is with, in my new role, I feel like I'm truly blessed to be a part of this organization. It's one of those things where I love to come to work every day and is one of the things that I enjoy. You really feel like you're part of a family here. And I know that's quite often and cliche in some environments, but I'll tell you, it just feels for me like it's the right place for me to be and I enjoy what I do every day.
Speaker 1 00:13:03 Well, you know, it starts at the top and trickles down. So it's inspiring and good to hear that top leadership is happy and looks forward to being there and is excited about what's coming. So
Speaker 2 00:13:14 Yes, and when you can walk around with a smile on your face, it's infectious.
Speaker 1 00:13:17 Oh, for sure. Absolutely. Well, mark, I appreciate your time today. Have fun with your theory of Constraints course and safe travels to you back and forth.
Speaker 2 00:13:26 Thank you, Sherry, I appreciate it. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:13:28 And we'll talk soon. All
Speaker 2 00:13:29 Right, thank you.
Speaker 1 00:13:29 All right, take care. Have a great day. You too. P G T I University is the customer education team for an entire family of brands. We began with the original Easy Breeze, porch, and closure line, then became P G T, America's leading brand of impact resistant windows and doors. We then added C G I C G I C window, Western Windows Systems, new South Windows, echo windows and doors, and lin windows and doors, and our latest acquisition, Martin Garage doors. We create products built to withstand major storms, keeping people safe, secure, and prepared. Our exceptional brands give you the protection you need without compromising design or functionality. P G T I University is here to educate you, our listener, so that you can be a more informed consumer of window and door products.
