Moving the Chains in Production & Performance
Steady progress doesn’t come from one big play. It’s built one first down at a time.
First Down is a monthly webinar series focused on real conversations with manufacturing leaders who are improving performance, solving problems, and building stronger operations, without adding complexity to their teams.
If you’re looking for practical ideas from manufacturing leaders who’ve been in your shoes, this series is for you. Join us live, ask your questions, and walk away with ideas you can put into play immediately. Because consistent progress is built one first down at a time.
What to Expect
Datanomix customers join our VP of Solutions, Gabe Maentz, to talk through:
- What was stalling production
- What they were reacting to instead of managing
- What finally clicked once they had visibility
- The measurable wins that followed
With Gabe Maentz as Referee
VP of Solutions, Datanomix
Gabe leads conversations the same way he approaches product, by staying close to the work and the people doing it.
He believes real progress doesn’t come from advice handed down from a distance. It comes from living with the outcomes, learning from the mistakes, and building solutions alongside manufacturers who rely on them every day.
At Datanomix, Gabe works directly with customers to drive meaningful results while helping shape a product built for the realities of the shop floor. That’s what makes him the perfect host for First Down — real conversations, real operators, real wins.
— THE CHAIN CREW SCHEDULE —
Register today to join us live or to receive the on-demand recording.
High-Mix, High-Setup, High-Stakes: Getting Real-Time Visibility When Every Job Is Different
Jamie Lerma
V.P. / G.M.
ATD Precision Manufacturing
In a high-mix shop, no two days look alike. New job, new setup, new material, new tolerance stack. By the time you know how a job actually ran, it’s already off the machine. Jamie Lerma, V.P./G.M. at ATD Precision Manufacturing, joins us live to show what real-time visibility looks like when every job is a fresh changeover — how his team built a baseline across roughly 30 machines, and what the first months of Kick-Ass Coaching actually looked like.
The Continuous Improvement Habit Every Shop Needs
Bob McGregor
President
Neo Industries
Most shops quote a job, run it, and never look at it again until something breaks. That’s not “dialed in”, that’s drift. Bob McGregor of Neo Industries doesn’t run his shop that way. He treats every run as a data point, compares batch to batch, and hunts down the longest tools in the cut. On one titanium job alone, that habit took cycle time from 32 minutes to 21 — a 34% gain without buying a new machine. Bob will share the cadence behind the result. The principles work the same whether you run 5 spindles or 50.
Boosting Machine Efficiency & Reducing Downtime with Production Monitoring
Kody Guidry
General Manager
Coastal Machine & Supply
Coastal Machine & Supply has been delivering precision machined parts with personal service since 2004. What started as a Gulf Coast supplier to the oil and gas industry has grown into a nationally recognized shop whose work ships around the world. From day one, staying current with technology has been a founding principle — their fully paperless facility runs PC workstations at every machining center, giving the team real-time access to data, tooling, and the latest specs. The result: exact results, fast turnarounds, and on-time deliveries.
Competing on Data: How Machine Intelligence Wins More Work for OMW Corporation
A Panel Discussion with OMW Corporation:
Michael Langston
President & COO
Kevin Early
Production Manager
Chris Radieve
Director of Manufacturing Technology
You’re competing against shops overseas with lower labor costs, cheaper real estate, and no shortage of capacity. And your best customer wants to know why they should keep buying from you.
OMW Corporation runs 43 machines across two California facilities, competing for parts in the new space economy against exactly those shops. They can’t out-cheap anyone. So they out-prove them — and it’s working: a 12% utilization gain across the floor in under a year, and $2.5 million in new work that followed a single customer meeting where the data did the talking.
Watch OMW’s leadership team break down how machine intelligence drives efficiency in their shop, and how real-time data became the competitive edge that wins deals.
Machine Efficiency: Unlocking Capacity You Already Own
Jack Russell
Owner of Rolar Products
Muskegon, MI
Before investing in new equipment, what if you could uncover capacity that’s already sitting on your shop floor?
In this session, Jack Russell, Owner of Rolar Products, shares how they used production data to challenge the instinct to simply add more machines. By gaining clear visibility into true utilization, downtime, and performance across their existing equipment, they identified where capacity was being lost and where opportunity already existed.
The result was smarter prioritization, better decision-making, and measurable gains without defaulting to capital spend.
If you’re looking to increase output without increasing footprint or headcount, this conversation offers a practical look at how to unlock the machines you already own.