The Job Shop Show

A Manufacturing Podcast

We talk with the owners, suppliers, partners, and customers of custom manufacturers. Listen and learn the secrets of top performing job shops. The tools, techniques and backgrounds that have made them successful. All in the quest to raise the bar for custom manufacturing.

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2025 Paperless Parts POWER User Conference
2025 Paperless Parts POWER User Conference

In this special edition of the Job Shop Show, we hit the floor at the 2025 Paperless Parts Power User Conference, where over 250 of the nation’s most forward-thinking shop owners gathered. We asked attendees three big questions—from their outlook on 2025 to where they'd invest $500K—and captured their candid, insightful responses. Tune in for a pulse on the industry's priorities and predictions straight from the shop floor.

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Metal-Tech Industries (MTI)
Metal-Tech Industries (MTI)

In this episode of The Job Shop Show, host Jay Jacobs talks with Glen and Nathan of Metal-Tech Industries (MTI), a third-generation sheet metal fabricator based in Brisbane, Australia. They discuss MTI's journey from a small transport-focused shop to a high-tech, lights-out manufacturing operation, powered by investments in automation, software, and a people-first approach. The conversation highlights the value of global collaboration, embracing technology, and building a culture of continuous improvement.

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Brandon Worrell of KCSP Machine
Brandon Worrell of KCSP Machine
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  • “The more I can do to automate work the better. I like playing with new ideas and new technologies. Once I’ve conquered something, if I can automate it and never do it again, that’s a win.”

    NICK POLANOSKY, P3D CREATIONS

  • “I love machining and I love manufacturing in our country. And I want to see us create manufacturing jobs in our community. I want to see us grow substantially. I want to see operators come in and turn into machinists. I want to see us saving customers money because of the automation and technology that we invested in. And I want to see them buy parts, here in America.”

    COURTNEY SILVER, KETCHIE PRECISION MACHINING SOLUTIONS

  • “You’re so empowered as a small company; whether you’re the owner or the president; you don’t have the red tape. If you want to make it happen, you go out and make it happen”

    JEFF GEORGE, MICRO-TRONICS, INC.

  • “You know what my philosophy is; put my people first and that way I know we’ll always be successful ”

    RODD BLESSEY, ALDINE METAL

  • “Kids today want opportunities to work with their hands and get away from all the screen time, and make high end stuff.”

    CRAIG CEGIELSKI, CARDINAL MANUFACTURING

  • “I found that it’s one thing to lead your company, but it’s another thing to lead your peers. And once you lead your peers, you can develop the tools and techniques to take in confidence; be able to do whatever you need to do to make your business run.”

    GRADY COPE, REATE ENGINEERING

  • “One of our core values is innovation. And we encourage that with with everybody in our shop, we encourage innovation on any task that you’re doing. A lot of people say you’re either growing or you’re dying, one or the other. And I twist that a little bit. I say you’re innovating, or you’re dying, it’s one or the other; you can’t just do the same thing you’ve always done it’s, it’s not going to work forever”

    KURT WAGNER, WAGNER MACHINE COMPANY

  • “There was a conference that the Commerce Department put on about five years ago. And the then chief economist of the Commerce Department shouted me out in the audience and said, ‘reshoring would not be happening today, if it were not for the Reshoring Initiative and Harry Moser”

    HARRY MOSER, RESHORING INITIATIVE

  • “We respect each other’s companies, we respect each other’s customers, and we respect each other’s employees. And it’s a commitment we make to each other. And realizing that together, we’re stronger than we are by ourselves. I can’t tell you how many times we got into larger projects than we could do and we were able to utilize our trusted industry partners who are friendly competitors; and being able to complete projects without worrying about them taking our customers or taking our people. And by being a part of the association, it was a commitment we all made that we would respect each other.”

    ROGER ATKINS, NTMA

  • “The more people participating on something, they feel like they own it and they care more. And if you can bring that careness- that they’re part of a team - into the atmosphere; that has been very successful for me”

    STEVE LYNCH, APPROVED SHEET METAL

  • “I have a passion to help produce people as much as we produce products”

    JEFF ROBINSON, HYBRID MACHINING

  • “Collaborating with really good shops and then augmenting that with what we do here in our shop has been a big win. That’s part of the charter of CSI manufacturing. Creating career opportunities for people. In addition to that, it’s opening the door for the other companies in the group and working with customers.”

    STEVE DOODY, CSI

  • “What you want and what a job shop owner wants isn’t complexity; isn’t time with a consultant. They want to have really happy customers and a really happy team and a fantastic output in their business.”

    DAN KIRBY, THE TECH DEP

  • “The guys and girls that have been in this for a long time, they know how hard it is. They know how hard it is to make good parts and, and I think it’s just a really exciting time to be in the industry, when companies like paperless parts are figuring out how to help us monetize.”

    ARNOT HELLER, CENTRAL SCREW PRODUCTS

  • “The reason we got 3i bend is cause we recently upgraded one of our breaks to the Amada HD 1003 ATC, which is a automatic tool changing machine. The beauty of this machine is it takes an hour setup and cuts it down to about a minute and a half.”

    CHRIS SWEENEY, SWEENEY METAL FABRICATORS

  • “The greatest joy that I’ve found in running this business are the successes of our customers and the growth of our employees and the teamwork atmosphere. It’s not about the money anymore, although we both know that you have to pay the bills. But it’s my philosophy now is that if you want to get bigger, serve better.”

    JEFF TREVORROW, COLUMBUS ADVANCED MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

  • “We look at every project and each situation as its own unique challenge and we gather as much information and data as we can about the component or assembly or the project as a whole and we strategize a plan or path forward”

    ALI BAHAR, MAMMOTH MACHINE & DESIGN

  • “We use the best tooling out there and we apply it properly into the right cutting data and it makes a big difference in the bottom line of what a part will cost if the tool is run correctly because of the speed and the efficiency of the tool.”

    PETER SAMUELSON, S&S MACHINE

  • “We didn’t want to spend time building fixtures. We wanted to make parts and wanted to make them fast and that was one of the biggest and best decisions I ever made was going with a modular system for the whole shop.”

    DAMIAN FORSYTHE, IMPACT MANUFACTURING

  • “If we can help them out in any way, we’ll offer our services or even turn them to another shop that we know might be able to help them better”

    BRIAN LEMOINE, BRIAN'S MACHINE SHOP

Meet Your Host Jay Jacobs

The host of the Job Shop Show, Jay Jacobs, has a passion for custom part manufacturing and has been immersed in the job shop community since 1987, buying his first 3D Printer in 1989. Jay has sold to job shops, worked for job shops, owned job shops and been a customer of job shops.

The Job Shop Show Podcast is sponsored by Paperless Parts, the #1 estimating and quoting software for manufacturing. Paperless Parts is a powerful, intuitive manufacturing software that will empower your team to quote smarter, eliminate mistakes, and save time.

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