A Successful Project’s Lifecycle Through Project Management

Welcome to Advanced Automation, a podcast by Calvary Robotics, where you'll find industry leaders and experts sharing their thoughts on the world of automation. Hello, everyone, and thanks for listening. I'm Josh Gravel, your host for this installment of Advanced Automation. Today, we have with us Erik Weber. Erik Weber is a native of the Finger Lakes region of New York State. He graduated high school from Hamsport and went on to earn his BSME from the University of Pittsburgh. Erik's automation background started in nineteen ninety five, and in two thousand, he joined Calvary. With over twenty six years in the automation industry, Erik has held such roles as engineer, project team lead, and project manager. Currently, Erik is a senior project manager for Calvary Robotics. Throughout the years, his experience in such fields as medical, automotive, alternative energy, and consumer products has led him to be a significant contributor to Calvary's pre engineered solutions, standards, project management, and business systems. Thanks so much for being with us today, Erik. Hey. Thanks, Josh. Thanks for having us on the podcast. You're doing a great job with it, and it's good to get our our messages and stories out. I agree. And you are have a long, you know, story with Calvary, so it's gonna be exciting for everyone to hear the earlier years of Calvary through your eyes. I'm gonna start with that, kinda going back in time. Your timeline, the past, what your schooling was like, early life, what sparked your interest in engineering in general? Sure. As you mentioned, growing up in the Finger Lakes, so we're in a kind of a semi remote area, Keuka Lake, you know, miles from town. We spent a lot of time outdoors riding bikes in the boats and and helping, around the property with dock work, mowing. Later got into the cars and trucks. And that struck me as interesting, trying to figure out how things work. We would tear apart the bikes and put them back together, add gadgets, new parts, always always wrenching on something, and family was into that as well. And in fact, in Hammondsport, one of their finest natives, Glenn Curtis, was an aviator, inventor, turn of the century. And he has a big museum, and there's a lot of equipment in there, motorcycles. And he built the first, seaplane and grew that company in a Kirk Curtis aircraft. And later, they merged with their contemporaries at the time of the Wright brothers. And Curtis Wright is actually still in business today. So there was a big manufacturing base in our small town, and it's unfortunately kind of gone away. But, nonetheless, the lineages there was a bit natural for me because father, grandfather, uncles, were engineers and like vehicles, boats, and cars, and and just playing around with gearhead stuff. So that's that's one of the primary reasons that that I kept kept involved with it and wanted to know how things work. That's interesting. So something in the water might be out there. Yeah. That's right. Well, you watch, you know, you watch a sailboat, you watch a motorboat, and, you know, basically anything in motion, there's a ton of, science and physics behind it. Lots of ways to get involved. Right? Whether, you know, some people are involved in the graphics or, you know, they just like the the speed factor of it, and some people get into, you know, how they work and how to how to make them work and repair them and so on. Absolutely. So why do you think project management is your career choice? Like, what led you to wanna do that? Well, it started out didn't start out that way, you know, in school, through math and sciences. Wanted to to get into the technical role. Sophomore year or so at University of Pittsburgh. They're Pittsburgh had a lot of industry leaders in that area, worked with the university for student projects and internships. So we're able to see some of the industry from early second, third year on, and ended up in design when I graduated. I never worked on the big boards, but I did start out in two d AutoCAD, I think it was, way back and worked under senior engineers and builders to learn the machine design. And, well, like I said, project management was a bit of a road to get there, but never never started out that way. And after a few years in the seat drawing and designing equipment, I was helping debug a lot of machines on the floor. In fact, there was one project that had miles of conveyor and many, many machines, and the machines that I designed were built and running well. So they asked some of the leadership, asked me, can you start working on some of these other machines that weren't working as well? So I ended up battling a lot of cleanup on, several projects. And, you know, there's a critical role in the invention piece and designing and getting them built initially, and then there's another critical role in getting them debugged and working correctly so we can get them out the door. So as I spent more time with the builders and the electrical and controls engineers and the leadership team and the customers, you know, it started evolving into more of a project role instead of strictly engineering. And there was an event where, one of the project managers on a project I was working with, he moved to another position within the company. So the leadership at the time said, hey, Weber. You'd be fine at this. And, actually, he didn't plan that or know what I was getting into, but ended up acting as the project manager for that, and that was it. Never got back. Never got back to design engineering. So the role project manager, still, we're gonna talk some more about that, but, you know, you're still, in a sense, the lead engineer on the job across all disciplines. So it's still highly technical, which is very, very rewarding for me and challenging. Right. Right. We talked about that before in some of the other episodes where people don't necessarily end up where they thought they were going, but still using all the tools or lessons along the way to then translate them to whatever they end up doing. So sounds like you kinda went that path as well. That's right. Great. So over the years, I don't know if you could put this into numbers, but how many projects do you think you've managed? I don't have exact count. The rough number is about a hundred. Twenty six years in the industry, not project manager for all those years, but just did some rough math. I would say between eighty five and a hundred. Some are small, you know, half million dollar size machines up to systems that are literally tens of millions of dollars. Huge lines. In fact, one of them in the recent past consumed, the entire North Bay of Calvary, which if if anybody's been at our factory, it's pretty pretty impressive sight, and picture that entire North Bay filled with equipment. That was one of the larger ones. So I've had medical device and automotive are probably the primary business segments, but certainly a few projects in the alternative energy and consumer products. Absolutely. And within the amount of, you know, project spend or the cost, times vary too where it can be months versus over a year. Correct? That's right. Some of the quick turns are several months, and some of the longer programs can be over a year, year and a half. What would you say the core elements of being a project manager are? You know, we build machinery. Right? And we build each each system as a unique project. So the projects have unique scope, budget, and schedule. And and our job as PMs is to deliver that equipment on budget, on schedule, and or exceeding all the requirements, whether it's, you know, the rates or the quality, performance of the machine, whatever's defined in that scope. You know? So that that's all you gotta do. Right? Pretty simple. But it does take a unique set of skills that each, you know, each department, you know, engineering, fab, assembly, debug, all have to work together, and the customers have to be heard and their expectations managed and met. You know, we have to negotiate disputes. We have to analyze performance and and correct things when they go astray. So there are different management styles, of course, and you have to find one that works for you and your team and also help groom the customers, you know, and the fans at Calvary. We want we want our customers to keep coming back. So it's a very difficult balance to, you know, meet the the budgets, schedules, performance criteria, and also keep the customers thrilled with the company and wanting to come back. Tightrope walking. That's part of your resume. Exactly. Exactly. So you kinda already touched on this, but could you drill down more into why it's critical the life cycle of a project for a project manager to be in the all aspects of it of a project. Yeah. So, you know, the reasons we just talked about, you know, the project has a lot of competing interests. The project needs one champion to connect everything and make it all seamless. And Calvary is a matrix organization, so that means that the operations departments, they supply resources to the projects. But those managers, they have to, you know, manage the and benefit all projects. So they're they're looking from a department perspective trying to, you know, keep everybody focused, efficient, and the customers satisfied, but they hand off to the other departments. But the project managers, you know, they're an advocate only for their projects across all the departments. So the PM is the person who guides the project through every phase of that life cycle from cradle to grave. You know, we work with the sales and the apps team during the quoting phase, and then we own the contract once the purchase orders is awarded. That's your project. It's your small business, essentially, or big business if it's a, you know, sizable project. So throughout the engineering, the build, the debug qualification, shipment, installation, you know, hand off to production, the PMs in is the primary role, and the company and our customers, you know, have one point of contact. And that's, you know, one person who knows everything about the job. We don't count the bolts or know how to change an IP address or anything, but but we are the experts on that machine, and and we have the ability to apply the necessary resources for whatever that problem may be or question or task is at hand. So it's a very different perspective in in terms of, you know, some of the smaller automation companies or even some of the large automation companies are driven by department leads, and and the customers kinda get handed from department to department through the life cycle of their project. But that's not how Calvary operates. We have the project manager who's your point man or woman start to finish. So could you explain to us the project management professional, the PMP certification? Sure. PMP, that's acronym for project management professional, and that's a certification that's presented through PMI, which is the Project Management Institute. Now they're an international organization, and, you know, they aggregate and publish and and promote project management practices across all industries, honestly. And they take the best practice and standardize the language. They standardize the process in an attempt to, you know, educate everyone, improve performance, and, you know, standardize the industries. And we learn a lot from them because it's, you know, it's a resource from PMs to see what others are learning and putting into practice. And having that PMP certification means the PM has been exposed to all these different concepts and and has demonstrated that through both the work experience. There's a work experience component to your PMP certification, and a challenging exam. And the exam is it is challenging. You give them four hours to complete it, and I remember it. I used every last minute of it. Yeah. It's a challenge to be to be sure. So that PMP certification kinda gives gives the company and the customers comfort that, okay. This this person's educated in in a standard process and is gonna be able to manage with with some metrics that are pretty much, universal throughout throughout the industries. How long have you been PMP certified? Certification was in o two or o three, so it's been close to twenty years. What separates Calvary's project management team from others? Quite a few things, Josh. One is our team structure itself. We have a lot of experience in our project management team, particularly experience in automation. So, you know, one of the qualities for project management is to to be an expert in your field and having project managers that know the industry and and can help on a technical level is is one of our keys that definitely set us apart. Our project management team members, their experience levels are, you know, on average, ten to fifteen years minimum. And we have a structured system that we follow. We have a process. So our projects all are executed in a similar fashion, and we've tuned that process over the years so that it's efficient, but also provides, you know, the the level of detail that's necessary so so we don't miss anythings. And and we've had compliments over the years, from many customers on the diligence of the PM systems and the project managers themselves. So it seems to work very well and sets us apart. And cross pollination from one industry to the next. You might use a technology in the medical that applies to automotive, and it can help you learn along the way. Yeah. Absolutely. There we'll talk a little more about standards and how we apply those, little bit later. But the industry to industry, there are similarities, but there are also ways that, you know just one simple example I can think of is validation. You know, we picked up skills from the medical device industry on validation that typically weren't followed in consumer products or alternative energy. And and when we applied those in those other industries, it it made a a big improvement in terms of the efficiencies we were able to achieve and the qualification process just going a lot smoother. That's just one example. Absolutely. Can you tell us about a project that stands out to you and has helped you keep passionate over all these twenty six years being in the industry? Yeah. Absolutely. There was several recently, but probably the one that stands out head and shoulders above the rest is is in twenty twenty. We were challenged as part of the COVID response to build the system for a local manufacturer that builds the test kits that are being used, you know, pretty much everywhere. They're being used in hospitals, doctors' offices, pharmacies, clinics. So this was at the start of the pandemic. In April of twenty twenty, we were quoting the system, and we got the PO purchaser around the first of May. And this was a very, very large system. There were, forget the exact number, twenty twenty five or twenty six robots, several hundred feet of conveyors, and actually more like several thousand feet of conveyors and a lot of assembly machines scattered about, and we started that order the first of May. We're all remote at the time, so it was very challenging learning that learning in that environment because it's the first time that we'd had a full engineering effort working remotely, but it it worked very well. And we went seven days for, you know, long days for many, many weeks just to get started in in the engineering, and and we were releasing parts for fabrication as soon as we could get them designed. We ran parallel designs in some cases where we didn't have time to prototype. We didn't have time to, you know, really debate through the virtues of two designs. So we built we built two in parallel and, you know, basically replicated whichever one worked best after we got it built. We we had to preorder components. We were ordering robots and servos and motors and indexers and conveyors before we had the design work done, and and the engineers had to had to cram in that that preordered component because we we had to get our hands on it. We couldn't do the normal design cycle, and We paid a lot for expediting, double shifts. We're doing things like hiring suppliers to actually send their text and be on-site with no, you know, work description, no defined task. You know, just get here because we're gonna put you to work once once you're here. And we ended up installing that equipment in July and August of twenty twenty. So, you know, think about that from May to August, and this was tens of millions of dollars that we were able to design and build all in a short span of four months, four to five months. And it was, you know, quite satisfying, number one, to help, you know, address the pandemic and and watch that those tractor trailer trucks leave with these crates and crates and crates of test kits coming off our equipment, and it was emblematic of everything we do. We had to invent the equipment, build it, install it, and get it running all in record time, and that always stand out, you know, one of our one of our big achievements and, something that can make you feel good. You know, it's different than just building a machine that slams together parts that go into some other device or or whatever is in terms of, you know, satisfaction levels, seeing all those test kits go out the door. So that was a great project. It will always, stand out in my memory. What advice would you give someone who wants to get into project management? Advice? They tell them to run. Go the other way. Yeah. Try something else. But, seriously, if you're interested in in project management, it is very satisfying. You you need to be willing to learn, you know, all aspects of the process. You know, don't don't shy away from something you don't understand. Instead, you gotta dive in and and learn it. And and I don't mean learn it at the technical level where the experts are, but understand the language and how the decisions are made and how the outcomes can can affect the project. So you gotta be ready to to help people with unsolvable problems, you know, be willing to listen to the experts and, you know, piece together all the puzzles, communicate things whether they're good or bad. That's one of the tough parts, but something that can set a project manager apart. You know? Everybody likes to, bring good news, but it's not easy bringing up the tough conversations, but it's part of the job. You have to, speak up when the room, you know, makes that awkward silence. Right? There there's occasions where, you know, you have an unsolvable problem. There's no good answers. And in fact, I remember one time we're, you know, sitting around and the room was silent. And one of my leads who happens to jab at me for fun says, well, Weber must be lonely at the top. And we all laughed. But you had to speak up. You have to get through it. That's part of it too. You know, project managers need to motivate the people, but, also, you know, everybody's a little different. I try and bring a little humanity and humor to it. You know, one time the machines were debugging weren't running well. Suppliers related to prototypes weren't weren't producing good parts that we needed to prove before we really started scaling up the debug. Customers were edgy. Everyone's working, you know, long and hard. And I remember in a meeting, I said, well, clearly, what we need is somebody to pull this all together. And I kinda did a single clap and shake my fist and said, now who who's it gonna be? Everyone was looking around kinda sheepishly, and I waited a moment. And I said, well, just me? It can't be just me. Who's gonna help? And and it was kinda sounds corny, but, you know, one guy says, yeah. I'll help. I'll help. And another one jumps up. Yeah. I'm gonna help. And it was one of those moments where people kinda grab the shovel and started digging right right with you, and you gotta be willing to to do that. In the trenches with them. That's right. Yeah. So that worked on that, you know, particular day, and we we ended up, pulling together. It took a long time. Obviously, these machines, you know, there's weeks and weeks of debug to get them all done. But another example what PMs can do to help is try and you know, get people to think a little bit more outside the box. I hate to use a phrase like that, but one machine, we we could not get it running in, and we weren't making our metrics. And we met each morning as we do with all projects and, you know, get a daily plan and so on. And it was a Wednesday. I remember we met, and we'd had a bad day on Tuesday. And so I just told everybody, hey. We're not running the machine today. Not at all. We're gonna clean the machine. I want you to sweep the floors and, you know, organize your toolboxes. You're gonna get the workbenches straightened out, clean up the drying table, break down and pack all the unused parts, get the stock return. But I want you to carry a notepad and a pen, and I want you to be writing down any thought you have throughout the day that we can change or do better. I I borrowed this from a a senior project manager from long, long ago. And and, basically, what we did in this, scenario, we got the team working on, you know, just just moving all day long, cleaning or whatever, where there wasn't a lot of thought going into that particular activity, but they could think about, hey. What are we gonna do differently tomorrow? So when we turn the machine on, you know, we'll have better success. So they're making their notes throughout the day, and and then the next morning, we went through and read through the notes. We blasted them up on whiteboards and started, you know, drawing the fish bones and picking out which ones would be prioritized. And, you know, eventually, a few of them led us to some breakthroughs. So, you know, that's not anything that we do on every single project, and it's in our process. It's just something that that as a PM, you gotta think about different ways to connect with people, and that that was pretty successful on that occasion. Yeah. I think that does kinda put a nice overview of what a project manager does. You think outside the box. You pit you do pivot when it's necessary. You might not think right away it's going to be directly involved, but it it helps hone in and figure out any problem that you might have in a little bit different way. I I like that. Great. There isn't a, you know, PM one zero one book. You just step through these twelve processes, and you'll be done. It's you've gotta improvise. Yeah. Especially with basically every project being different in in a lot of ways. That's right. How do you keep up to speed with technology? It's always changing. It's ever evolving. What's the best way that you kinda keep up to date with the newest things? Good question. There's couple things come to mind. Our suppliers play a big part in that. They're bringing new technology. You know, we buy OEM parts for, all kinds of different sub automation components, you know, Robots or control systems or vision systems or, you know, motion systems. So their leading technology is generally bringing to us to help us, you know, reduce cost or improve quality or improve rates, things like that. Customers as well, though, we, you know, we we have to innovate new manufacturing technologies based on whatever product they happen to show. And they may have the customers may have some prototyping or some pilot machines that bring a new technology that we have to industrialize, you know, and it really helps from a, you know, knowledge base and performance space when we have these these new products and new new customers come to us. So they bring some as well, you know, vision guidance, AI, machine learning, safety networks, supervisory control, cloud computing. You know, all these, areas are exploding, and we're at the forefront of that, developing new machinery and new assembly processes. You spoke earlier about Calvary's pre engineered solutions and their standards. Could you go into how you help contribute and the global benefits of those things for Calvary? Sure. So the standards that we've developed over the years allow us to reduce the cycle time of the engineering effort because we can use pre engineered blocks for all types of different functions, whether it's motion functions or inspection functions, conveyance, picking places, robotic applications so we can use the design that that we've already proven, change the change the tooling for the particular process. Like I say, it it really helps us in terms of, delivery and cost because that you know, if you look at each machine as a one off first generation and you're gonna design everything from scratch, you know, that that'd be like, you know, building a car without any manufacturing equipment. So it really helps when you have these pre engineered pieces that you can drop in and customize. And we're adding to it, you know, continuously. If we find a station design that that works well and we can apply it, we go through an effort to put that in our standards library and and bring it all into something that can be easily replicated. So I I think the biggest biggest benefits there are for performance and and cost and and schedule. You you've already pre engineered that that portion of the project. Just takes your workload down and provides a, you know, solid product for the customer. Right. Reduces the time to market for them as well. Absolutely does. Yes. You know, you can look at, what our engineering cycles in in general design build can be, you know, thirty to forty percent. So if you take, you know let's say you take half of that out, you're gonna reduce your schedules, you know, by at least fifteen percent. So you've been in the Greater Rochester region for pretty much your whole life. What keeps you living here, working here, and other favorite aspects? Well, yeah. As you mentioned, grew up in the Finger Lakes. It's a beautiful area, for those who have not ever been. You know, deep clear lakes, great topography, forests, and parks, wineries, small towns, things like that. It's pretty unique area, at least in my perspective. And, yeah, I enjoy being outdoors and spend most of my free time under the sky and and not under a ceiling. So I feel there's a lot of opportunities here to enjoy enjoy the outdoors and the all that those wilderness areas have to offer. But at at the same time, you know, Rochester area, Webster is they have a lot to offer. Easy commutes. You know, housing's very affordable, and, you know, the Great Lakes are right on our shore here, and and the Anoronek Park in New York City are, you know, half day ride away. So I think it's a good mixture for whatever your interests may be. There's a lot of high-tech companies in our area. You know, Rochester was a leader in the technology with some very big brand name companies that have you know, maybe some of them are past the heyday, but they've spurred, you know, many smaller high-tech companies. So there's a a great talent pool and a and a great opportunity for, you know, industry here. It's got to be you know, Calvary in general's got to be one of the gotten to be one of the leaders in the automation industry. So it's a it's a great place to be with respect to our competitors. You know, we we've done so many things in terms of standardization, our project management systems, and our technology that I think in terms of the automation industry, it's a great place to grow. You know? You just gotta be ready to grab the winter jacket and find some good in in in part of the year when it's cold out. You know? Love to ski, sled, and other the other great things to do in the cold if you look for it. And the summers are fantastic really because they're never super, super hot, and you can be outside and and you don't have to shelter from some heat and humidity in other areas of the country. But another, you know, another aspect about Calvary that is attractive for me is is we've grown, you know, quite a bit over the years, but we still have a small company type of atmosphere. You know? Everyone's accountable. You have to get the job done, and and we don't have committees to work through. It's pretty much streamlined and and allows a lot of flexibility. So we do have a lot of process, but I I feel we've made it efficient and and not taxing it. It really helps us move the projects along and and a lot of great people here at Calvary. I absolutely agree with that. What advice would you give a younger self if you could do it? I guess in my situation, perhaps, stay in design a little bit longer. I was a design engineer for a number of years, got pulled in the project management maybe a little bit sooner than I'd wanted to, but who knows? That's just speculation. Maybe branch in the controls. I was a mechanical engineer, but, you know, the control side is is pretty fascinating to me as well. So learn more. Be a sponge. Get everything you can out of everything. Where do you see the field of engineering and automation going? Any predictions? Well, we talk about standards. I do see that as, you know, growing, and and we've developed many of the standards, the chassis of robots, conveyance, and I see our custom automation using more and more of those pieces to reduce cost, reduce lead time, eliminate some of the discovery with custom automation. I see a lot more machine vision and machine learning, AI, and those types of technologies, And it's all in in an effort, in my opinion, not to to to bring our costs down. And I'm hoping that, you know, our US manufacturing base can improve one way through machinery like like we've said. And, hopefully, we have a techno technologically skilled workforce, you know, and and legislation to support that. And, you know, there's there's really read once that, you know, there's really only three ways to generate wealth. You have to grow it, you have to mine it, or you have to manufacture it. And we can't be a nation of services. We have we have to be a nation that generates wealth, and manufacturing's a huge part of that. So, hopefully, our machinery keeps our customers competitive and, brings a lot more of it back back to our shores. Can we get to work with robots? I mean, that's pretty cool. Yeah. What is the best way for our listeners to get in touch with you, Erik? Sure. Yeah. Probably the best way is through our Calvary website. It's calvary robotics dot com. You'll find multiple ways to contact people through there. My email address is e weber, e w e b e r, at calvary robotics dot com. Feel free to give me a, email and figure out how we can help. Alright, Erik. Well, thank you so much for your time and to look back at the history of your career in Calvary in general. Thanks a lot, Josh. I enjoyed it and, be seeing you soon. Awesome. Make sure to subscribe to Advanced Automation wherever you get your podcasts and head over to calvaryrobotics dot com to listen to other episodes, watch our series, Calvary TV, and lots of other great content about Calvary Robotics. Have a great day.