E1: Al Adkins - Norcross Tag

Al Adkins talks about being an Operations Manager at a tag manufacturing company in northeast Georgia.

Show Notes
Transcript

Transcript

EPISODE 01

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:02] MH: You're listening to The Industrial Movement, where we discuss the people, the processes, and the equipment that drives American manufacturing. If this is your first time listening, well, thanks for coming. The Industrial Movement Podcast is produced every week for your enjoyment and the show notes can be found at our website at www.theindustrialmovement.com. 

Come back often and feel free to add this podcast to your favorite RSS feed, or iTunes. You can also follow the show on Twitter @theindustrialmovement, or on our Facebook page. All links to our social media can be found in the show notes, and also at the bottom of our website. Now, let's get on to the show. 

[INTERVIEW]

[00:00:40] MH: Welcome back, or welcome. My name is Morty Hodge, the host of The Industrial Movement. Today, we're very fortunate to have a special guest, Al Adkins. Al and I have been friends for many, many years. Him and his family run Norcross Tag Company in Jefferson, Georgia. We're so blessed to have him here with us to tell us a little bit about himself and about Norcross Tag. What we like to cover is the people, the processes, and the equipment that drives American manufacturing. Al, welcome to the show.

[00:01:12] AA: Thank you. Appreciate it.

[00:01:13] MH: Yeah. To start off, tell us a little bit about Norcross Tag and the history of that company.

[00:01:18] AA: Okay. Well, my mom and dad founded it back in 1965. My dad actually got started in a printing business. When him and my mother met, they worked at Plantation Pipeline. Well, Plantation Pipeline had a rule that you couldn't date in the company. My mom had the better job, so my dad had to go find another job. He went and –

[00:01:40] MH: It was love. 

[00:01:40] AA: Yeah. He went to work for at the time, my aunt's husband who owned, what will be our competition, named Marion Manufacturing. They sold tags, labels, which labels weren't really big back in those days. My dad was a salesman, traveling salesman. He had the whole Southeast Texas all the way up to basically, Virginia, or worked his way up until that point. The boss had a bad habit of making his accounts, house accounts after so long, which of course, would cut his commission. After about, I don't know how many times it was, he files like, “You know what? I'm done with this.” 

My dad had the Holiday Inn Account, which anybody that knows the south, New Holiday Inn was probably the one of the largest hotel chains in the southeast back in those days. That was a really large account back in those days. Back then, Holiday Inn, they had the paper glass, the little cups that would cover the tops of the glass.

[00:02:47] MH:  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Little caps they had. Paper cups. 

[00:02:50] AA: Yeah. Of course, you had napkins, you had the little toilet liner thing, a little piece of paper that went around the toilet line and said, “Sanitize for your protection.” Anyway, all those paper products, dad had that account. We actually did not start in the tag business. We actually started in the business of supplying those paper products to Holiday Inn. 

[00:03:11] MH: Would be more of a standard printing company, or specialty printing?

[00:03:16] AA: It was more of specialty printing type deal.

[00:03:18] MH: Got you. 

[00:03:20] AA: We got the equipment. My dad was really good friends with a guy, and I still to this day don't know his name. His nickname was Jitter. To this day, that’s the only thing I know him from. He worked for Texas Tag back in the day. We actually bought our initial equipment from Texas Tag and made payments to them for all of, until I think I was in high school. Imagine Coke or Pepsi selling equipment to the other. That's how back in those days, I mean, can you imagine? Nobody would do that in this day and time. They’d throw the equipment in the trashcan before they sell it to a competition. 

[00:03:59] MH: Yeah.

[00:04:01] AA: My dad had that repertoire. My Dad was a person, he could sell ice to an Eskimo. He was just a very good salesperson. Anyway, so that's how we got into the tag business. My mom sold her 65 Impala Convertible for $3,500, startup cash. 

[00:04:15] MH: 65? 

[00:04:16] AA: Yeah, I had some SS logo on the front quarter panel. I couldn't make out what numbers it was. I told my mom I saw pictures of it. I said, “Please. Dear, Lord. Tell me this is it.” I’m wearing a barn that you're saving it.” It was white-red interior convertible. She goes, “You know baby, I had to sell it. I said, “If by chance, you remember what numbers were on that?” She said, “No. I just know if I hit that accelerator it scoot.” I'm like, “Yeah, I can only imagine.”

Anyways, that's how they went to business. They were started in the basement of a church in Doraville, Georgia. We went from there to a little office park in Doraville, Pleasantdale Road. We was there for, I don't know. We moved across the street to Jimmy Carter Boulevard and was there majority of – We were there about 13, 14 years, I think. 

Then we bought some land up here in Jackson County. We built in late 80s, early 90s. We’ve been up in Jackson County since then. Yeah, our competition, Marion Manufacturing, before we had the capital to move up here to Jackson County, mom and dad basically worked three and a half, four days a week, by the $30,000 month company back in those days. They played golf, Thursday afternoon, Friday and Saturday, Sunday. We had about, I think, six employees back in those days. Well, Marion Manufacturing closed up and we went from working three and a half days to four days a week, to working six and a half to seven days a week. 

We went from $30,000 to about a $150,000, because their delivery, they got bought out by Tag Company in Wisconsin. Their delivery went from two weeks to six weeks. Our phones basically, rang off the hook.

[00:06:03] G: People needed their stuff. 

[00:06:04] AA: Yeah. Back in those days, daddy would still travel a lot. I mean, he would travel and sell tags and deliver tags. We've always been very customer-oriented. We had to go to Nashville one day, me and him, because we had packed the tags in the wrong boxes. They weren't packed properly. We had to take off the Nashville in his ’72 Dodge van with no air-conditioning in the summertime and go to Opryland hotel and repack tags in the parking lot, because they were packed wrong, but that's how come we've been in business. People know well, we've always taken care of them. 

Anyway, we got to Jackson County, we hired and gotten more sophisticated in the manifold tag business. We hired people that brought us expertise from places that they worked at. That's how we've gotten started. My sister, my brother-in-law, he just retired this year. When they got back from Germany, she went to work at the company. Mama did everything with a typewriter and a pen and a piece of paper. Elayne brought us into, my sister, brought us into the computer, into the spreadsheets and got us into that mode of the world, which has been, I can't imagine doing it the way mama did it nowadays. Especially now, with everything being online, it's even gotten worse, with the being online and computers and everything generated. 

Yeah, my first job there was cutting paper and moving boxes, moving rolls of paper, picking up tags and it's still doing all the above, plus everything else, from cleaning the toilet to cutting the grass. I got to cut the grass this afternoon.

[00:07:51] MH: That never changes when you're the son of the owner, or the founder.

[00:07:54] AA: But yeah, we’ve always been the small tag company, in the grand scheme of the country with all the printing tag manufacture. There was probably 50 to 60 tag companies back when dad got into the business all across the country. Now, I'd say, there's probably 15, if there's 15 left. I'd say, eight of the 15 are probably owned by one corporation. 

[00:08:25] MH: Wow. 

[00:08:26] AA: Yeah. Ennis has pretty much about everybody up. They're huge. They print everything from buttons to billboards. They're a huge corporation.

[00:08:35] MH: What was the name of the company? 

[00:08:36] AA: Ennis.

[00:08:37] MH: Ennis. How do you spell that?

[00:08:39] AA: Ennis Manufacturing. E-N-N-I-S.

[00:08:40] G: Yeah. You’ve seen that on billboards and stuff, yeah. That makes sense. Wow.

[00:08:45] AA: Ennis is a big, big corporation. They've bought up all of the big tech companies over the last 10 to 15 years. All the big players, they bought them out. It's really them and a lot of small companies like us. When I say small. I mean, some of the companies are bigger than us. We are small compared to Ennis. Yeah, that's how we got started into it. We fell into the tag business –

[00:09:12] MH: Based on love. 

[00:09:13] AA: Based on love, I guess.

[00:09:15] G: There you go.

[00:09:16] MH: That's an incredible story. Thank you for sharing that. Why Norcross Tag Company? Where did that name come from? Because I remember in the story, you said that the first location was in a basement of a church – 

[00:09:27] AA: In Doraville. 

[00:09:28] MH: In Doraville. That's incredible. You remember the name of the church or no?

[00:09:31] AA: I do not remember. 

[00:09:32] MH: Okay. I was just curious.

[00:09:33] AA: I don’t even know where it was at.

[00:09:33] MH: Wow. That was before your time? 

[00:09:36] AA: Correct. I was born in ’67. They started in ’65. Our first office building that we was in was in Norcross. 

[00:09:45] MH: Okay. That was the one on Pleasantdale Road? 

[00:09:46] AA: Correct.  Our PO box was in Norcross. When we moved up here, back in those days before the Internet and easy searching, name mattered. 

[00:09:59] G: That was already established name, so there's no sense of changing it. 

[00:10:02] AA: Yeah, exactly.

[00:10:04] MH: Yeah. You had spent a long time building that brand, or your family did, Norcross Tags. So yeah, when you move the name comes with you, not the other way around. Well, that's great. Along the way, I find it very interesting, like you were saying. Texas Tag was what it was called? Is that right? They sold you the equipment to get started. 

[00:10:22] AA: Owner financed. 

[00:10:23] MH: That's incredible. I want to talk about that equipment later on in the segment. You've done a great job telling us about you and about your journey with the company. Tell us what a typical day looks like at Norcross Tag?

[00:10:37] G: At least for you it was a –

[00:10:38] AA: Yeah. Wouldn’t have a tornado?

[00:10:42] MH: Well, I think most plant managers and most maintenance managers of the manufacturer would say the exact same thing. You’re trying to herd cats and a tornado going on outside and then a fire, right?

[00:10:53] AA: In all the days, my day starts about 4:30. Everybody, I guess, has their routines, and how to get to work early enough that I have time to have a cup of coffee before the lights come on, so to speak. Anyways, in the printing industry, you're constantly dealing with deadlines. Either the customer forgot to order them, they ordered the wrong thing, or they're shopping for a cheaper price. I get it. We sell needs, not wants. When you're selling a need, not a want, people will nickel and dime you till there's no end. You want to sell somebody, you will make money in this world, sell a want. People will pay for a want more than a blink of an eye. 

A need, they will nickel and dime you till there's no tomorrow. That is what it is. It's also about keeping your cost low. That being said, the day always starts with this equipment, making sure all the equipment gets fired up it gets – because the equipment we're dealing with is they don't make it anymore. There are no spare parts. Parts had to be made in a machine shop. If everybody shows up for work, that's always a good sign. 

[00:12:10] MH: It's a good way to start the day. 

[00:12:12] AA: Yeah. Everybody has families and kids and cars. It's always good that everybody makes it to work safe. Then the presses get going. Then typically, once the world wakes up and the fax machines and emails start, that's when the day typically gets a little bit crazy. I don't know how many miles I walk in a week. I was going to keep my phone on me one day just to see how many steps I took. Our facility is 39,500 feet, which is not big, especially compared to some of the industries. My office is in the front, production’s in the back. I'm always making circles.

Then unfortunately, my memory, I'll walk into a room, forget what I came into the room for sometimes, and I had to turn around and walk back into the other room, so my memory comes back into play. That being said, I probably put a few extra miles that I can't blame on the business on from me. It's answering the phone, needing who's out of tags. Customer, they're always calling to check on the status of orders. We have a lot of good folks in our office that are constantly staying on the phones.

My mom’s a pet peeve and one of mine is never let the phone ring twice. Back in the day before emails and everything else, and when people would dial phones, my mom would say “Hold on.” She’d put one on hold and answer the line. She just didn't believe in somebody having to wait for the ring, and she sure didn’t never. We never had any kind of answering service. 

I don't like calling somewhere and having to go through an automated system to get to talk to a human being. I can’t stand that to this day. Granted, I'm old school when it comes to stuff like that. I'd much rather talk, even if you got to transfer me, I much rather to talk to somebody than to talk to Siri. That's the day and it doesn't change, because I wear a lot of hats. I may go in one day and have to cut a bunch of paper for jobs. I may have to go in and I got trucks coming in to unload material. There is no day that is the same, other than turning the lights on at the beginning and cutting them off at the end of the day. 

That's the only thing I would say is consistent about the printing industry. I'm not going to say it's always feast or famine, but it's 98% feast or famine. It's either everybody's out of tags, or nobody wants any tags. But it's been that way my entire life.

[00:14:47] MH: I was flipping through some of these tags. I'll hold them up for the camera here, but a lot of these have two parts. There are duplicate, triplicates.

[00:14:56] AA: Yeah. We call those manifold tags. 

[00:14:57] MH: Okay, tell me about that. I don't understand what the term manifold means. 

[00:15:01] AA: Manifold means it’s multi-part. Manifold. I don’t know exactly where manifold come from. That's all I've heard it called. What those tags do is you're able to write, when your inventory, whatever process the manufacturer are using for. They're able to write what they need to write on there. They tear one copy off, it goes to the office, tear another copy off, it goes. Then the actual tag will typically stay with the product. Very few of our tags are seen by I call it, John Q customer, the retail industry. When people look at me, I'm like, the tag on top of a fire extinguisher, because that's what most people see. 

Unless you're in a manufacturing facility, or you do repair work, or you do – you typically only see these. You never see our product, which is why we can be basically, as long I get UPS and a truck in my door, I can be anywhere in the country, because we don't deal with retail. That's basically, what those are for. That's how they're used. The multi-part tags was they can tear off pieces, and they can go in different parts of their company to track whatever the tag is for, whether it's a compressor motor that's come in, that has to go to – and I don't know your business, but you may have a compressor that’s got to come in. It's got to go disassemble it first. Then from disassembly, it's got to go to cleaning. After cleaning, it goes to prep or something. If there are different processes involved, that's where sometimes, there'll be multi parts.

[00:16:31] G: Do you find that most of your tags that you guys sell, or manufacture are used for the safety aspect of companies, whether it's lockout tagout, or repairs, stuff like that?

[00:16:42] AA: Well you have to do a lot of lockout tagout. When lockout tagout became big, we used to do a ton of those. They have gone by the way of the dodo bird. Not all of them, because now they can buy a lockout tagout plastic and they can reuse it over and over and over again.

[00:17:01] MH: Yeah, with the hasp and plastics – 

[00:17:04] MH: The advantage of plastics has hurt the paper tag business and is taking a certain percentage away. What saves us is when the companies that want them numbered, or they have to put it on some specialty, or they go through a lot of and want to buy all the plastic ones. So we still do some, but I'd say it's now, probably under 1%, probably if I had to guess. Not near as many as we used to do.

[00:17:32] MH: You're a manufacturer for manufacturers. 

[00:17:36] AA: Correct. 

[00:17:37] MH: That helps them with their processes. 

[00:17:39] AA: Correct. 

[00:17:40] MH: Which is exactly why we created this show, right? Interesting. The average order, how many tags does the average customer order from you guys?

[00:17:47] AA: Well, we — being the small time tag company, we’ve always specialized in what we call small-run orders. The orders the big guys didn't want to do. Our minimum order is a 1,000 tags. We would get, back in the day get calls from 50 tags, or I just need 100. We're like, Henry Ford was with the color of his vehicles. We’ll sell you any number of tags you want, as long as it’s a 1,000. A large order for a company my size would be 250,000 and up. That's –

[00:18:19] G: That's pretty big. 

[00:18:20] AA: That's a large order, or what I consider a large order. Medium size order is 50 to a 150. Then anything under 50 is I wouldn't say, it's a small order, but they're the normal orders. One to 50 is what we typically deal with. On average, I must say, I sell more 1,000 and 5,000 orders. Usually 10 and less is what I specialize in. I can usually turn them a lot faster than the larger guys, because they're selling a lot of the larger tag runs.

[00:18:54] MH: Now in regards to your processes you guys use, I'm sure you’re like every other manufacturer, your processes have evolved based on efficiency, productivity. What type of processes do you guys use to keep track of the different tags, the different orders, the different things going on? What do you guys have?

[00:19:12] AA: Well, believe it or not, other than putting a computer system on, the orders still come, all the quotes come through me across my desk. They're all still done one at a time with a add machine and an old price list. I am trying to create me some price list on a computer to where I can just punch in things and it prompts it up, because my eyes are getting so bad. I'm tired of looking through these little sheets all the time. We don't do any automation. Everything is still – with the exception of have a computer printing out orders, everything is done exactly the same way we did it back in 1965. 

[00:19:51] G: Wow. 

[00:19:52] AA: We have a file folder, where we have sample tags, a copy sheet, everything's written on there. My mom used to use the little manila, or the little legal –

[00:20:03] MH: Folders –

[00:20:04] AA: The little envelopes. The big manila envelopes. She used to put on, because she could fit into a typewriter, and she would type everything in each job. We went and created something that we can write on, because people can't type, me for one. My sister and we created one we can write on. Pretty much, I mean, it’s still short of – Just not a lot of automation you can do, short of trying to gang run a lot of the same size tags together. That's done with me and my feet, while doing the walking around.

It's funny, because there have been some technological improvements. UV ink is one thing we've gone to. It dries a lot faster, and it last longer exposed to sunlight than traditional inks. The equipment we use, like I said, it's not a lot of changes you can make to a press that was made back in the 40s, 30s, and 40s, 50s. There's a lot of things you can do to change them. Which is one reason why you can only put the reinforcement, the patches on the top of that tag and that's what makes a tag a tag. Right now, that's what's keeping those presses still invaluable, because that paper, when we printed that paper stopped for a half of a second, long enough to put that patch on that. Then it releases and then it comes on do the press. Unfortunately, I don't have a good, fancy answer for that one.

[00:21:41] MH: Well, I disagree. I think that's a great answer, right? Sometimes if it's not broke, don't fix it, right? Old school processes that are time tested and proven, as long as they're efficient, and they're the most streamlined way to handle it, there's nothing wrong with that. Tell us, as you're talking about this equipment, and that's usually the last segment, but you've picked our curiosity. Greg, did you have a question about the equipment? You look like you’re –

[00:22:05] G: Yeah. I was very curious, because usually, we deal with a lot of printing companies. What we do not to get into that, but I'm just curious with the machines, a lot of those are computer programs and they just run a batch. You're saying you're not doing that. I'm very curious to how those machines actually work and run a batch.

[00:22:23] AA: These printing presses we use –

[00:22:25] MH: First of all, who makes them?

[00:22:26] AA: Well, it's company, used to be – The company name was New Era. New Era Manufacturing was who made the last printing presses, which – or what the majority of what we have now. There were two major big printing press manufacturers back in the day that made tag equipment. One was Young Engineering, and then New Era Manufacturing. One was in New Jersey, I think, and the other one was in one of those other Yankee countries, Michigan. Michigan, Wisconsin, Detroit, somewhere up in there. Everything about Tennessee to me is, it all looks the same. It’s all one.

[00:23:00] MH: Damn, Yankee. 

[00:23:03] AA: All of the equipment come from up there. Paterson, New Jersey is where New Era Manufacturer, if I'm not mistaken. I think the last printing press that, if remember correctly, came off the assembly line in 1971. The New Eras were what we called the Cadillacs back in the day. From Texas Tag, we had Young Engineering printing press equipment back when mom and dad first started. Worked great when it worked. The Young Engineering printing presses were built one at a time. When I mean one a time, they were built one at a time. No part could be taken off of one Young press and put on another part.

That's why every mechanic machinist we've ever had hated. Even the press operators didn't like Young and not didn't like them. Even now, and you'll find people that swear by them. Ironically, Ennis, their largest tag producing plant in Wolf City, Texas, the majority of their equipment, they're still Young. If that’s all you have, and you're used to and you have the people that work on it, and know how to work on it, and you have the – that make the parts for them, they're a good press. There are things about the Youngs I like, that I dislike about the new era. There's things on the New Eras that they made that make a press operators life so much nicer.

I mean, you can actually adjust certain things while the equipment’s running. On the Youngs, you couldn't do that. Everything, there's no computers on these presses. Most of my presses are the old counters that actually clip on the front knife, so every time the knife come down and cuts a tag, it actually pulls a counter. You're actually looking at the old style counters. I actually saw one on eBay or Amazon the other day, for like a 115 something dollars for this little antique counter. I have about six or seven of those. All of ours, the size, determination, everything's done by nuts and bolts, chains, gears, sprockets, pulleys. There's not one computer thing.

The most sophisticated thing I have on there is an electric unwind that measures as a paper gets used, when the light hits a reflector, it turns a motor on, and feeds and turns up some wheels on, basically, that feeds the paper to keep the paper going through the machine. Other than that, this paper is what we call stop web printing. It pulls the paper and then the web stops, the web stops just long enough for the plate to make impression, then that as a plate’s coming back up, the paper’s moving again, which none of the sophisticated printing that a lot of corporations, y'all probably deal with, the computer run presses. Those are continuous web printing, where the paper never stops. Newspapers, they never stop. 

That printing is the plates are actually on a cylinder, because it's a wheel, so it never stops. There's actually presses that now that a computer controls the ink flow, the ink flow is coming out of 55 gallon vats. The person sitting at a computer that's monitoring, and these things are running 300 to 500 feet a second. I mean, it's crazy how fast some of this stuff runs. 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 million dollar presses. I remember, it would take me – I would be speculating at what the New Eras came off. I want to say, the most expensive one back in the day would have probably been maybe a 100 grand back in 1970, which is a lot of money back in the 70s. 

[00:26:54] MH: Yes, sir. 

[00:26:54] AA: Those presses are still running today. They don't require someone to have to get on an airplane with a laptop to come fly over, to debug the program system. He just got to have a good machine shop and say “Hey, I need a part made.” Sometimes those parts are a little difficult to make, because you don't have a pattern to go by. There are no drawings. There are no specifications. I got some wiring machines that actually put wires in the tags, and have no operator manual for them.

Now, I've never seen an operator's manual for them, nor a parts list. Once again, and you can't take anything off one and put on the other. You do the same adjustment on one machine, do it on the next machine, it won't work. 

[00:27:34] G: Wow. Interesting. 

[00:27:35] MH: It's a lot of high touch, constantly adjusting, or getting it set just right. 

[00:27:44] AA: It’s, you have to have a person, you have to stick a person that have to learn that machine. I can take two press operators and flip-flop them on their machines, and I lose sight of option in production.

[00:27:52] MH: How many presses do you guys have at your facility?

[00:27:55] AA: We have four operational printing presses. Two that are being refurbished, and lots of ones that I keep for spare parts. We have three wire machines right now, two string machines in the process of putting another string machine up, and another string. Well, technically there's four string machines, but one of them does a special type of string. It's a loop, we call loop string, where the ends are loose when they come out of the tag, so you can actually tie it around something, versus the knotted string, which is makes a loop where people have to wrap it around something and thread the tag back through there. It's a personal preference thing, for what application they're using it for. 

I make a lot of tags for Red Cross. I probably sell Red Cross, 8 million tags a year, something like that. Six to eight million tags a year. They want a certain size tag certain. Everything's got to be a certain way. I make Mueller. I'll do a big job for Mueller every year. Have some rotary corporation down in Middle Georgia. I don’t know where they're located at. I do a big job for them.

I have enough presses to keep me busy. I could use probably two or three more, but I don't have the press operators to run them. Sometimes it defeats the purpose to have equipment sitting around that you can't keep running.

[00:29:18] MH: Wow. Let me ask you this. Each press, does it do the printing and the cutting of the tags? 

[00:29:26] AA: Correct. 

[00:29:26] MH: Does it laminate them together, or glue them together?

[00:29:29] AA: Yes, it does. Everything is done on one –

[00:29:32] MH: One line.

[00:29:33] AA: In one line. It goes from my roll to the individual product. The one thing I don't do on the printing press is put a wire string in it. 

[00:29:41] MH: Wire string. 

[00:29:42] AA: Yeah, that's done in our auxiliary department. But yeah, it does everything –

[00:29:46] MH: That's not a standard printing press then.

[00:29:50] AA: Not by that specific terminology. No. The printing presses today are a lot of – they’re roll-to-roll. A lot of them are continuous web presses. Their labels are all done on what they call flexographic. With short-term, we call it flexo, but they’re roll-to-roll. Now some of the stuff that they can do on flexo is mind-blowing to me. The litho printers, which do your magazines, the high-end glossy, well I call that really high-end glossy type printing. Some of the stuff they do with it, and it was only four colors. Only four colors that they use. It's all mixed in and the plates, there are multiple plates in their screens. It gives me a headache to think about how some of that printing is done. Compared to what I call, we do glorified rubber stamp printing. I mean, we pull paper through there. We stop it. We stamp it with a print, and we move it on to the next one.

[00:30:48] G: I mean, yeah, you have all different shapes and sizes, I assume they're so – you have to change on a dye of some sort to cut the paper. 

[00:30:55] AA: No, it's all done based on the way it comes through the press. It's a roll of paper. This particular tag was done on a piece of stock. I think, is tagged like, it's about seven half inches. This tag stock would have been seven half inches wide. The bonds would have been about an inch shorter. As it comes through the press, what gives us a width is how far the paper, the wheels turn and it pulls it out. Then the knife cuts it, pulls it out. There's what we call the ears, or the clip corners are made by a diamond cutting dye, that when the paper stops, it – Everything comes down on what we call impression at the same time. 

The same time the plate hits the paper, it's cutting the dye, and is punching the hole out of the patch, but it's all done in different stages on the press. The presses we got are anywhere from 50 to 75 feet long. If I said, the paper starts out on a roll and by the time it comes out, the press operator is picking them up individually, just like what you see right here. 

[00:32:06] G: Very cool.

[00:32:08] MH: That's awesome. Did you have another question about the equipment?

[00:32:10] G: No, I don't think so. I mean, other than – I mean, you do all their own maintenance there, I assume, like you said, because you can’t get parts.

[00:32:16] AA: Yeah. We do all our own maintenance on them. I have a gentleman that used to work for – he worked for about I was about 17, 18 years. Then, he went on to do another job that they were able to pay him more money and give him some stuff that we just couldn't afford to give him at the time. He has been nice enough to come back. He comes back in at night time, if I have something that breaks and he helps me out. He's a real godsend. He's one in people that I call him the Sam Walton of the mechanics. Sam Walton was they talked about him being, still wearing overalls and you would never pick him out of a crowd of people that have as much money as he has. 

This particular gentleman, if you were looking at him, you would think that the sophisticates of the world would look at him and thumb their nose at him. I mean, to watch him, watch a piece of equipment and to sit there and stare at it and say, “Oh, it's doing this. Oh, it's doing that.” Then know where to turn this, or to turn that and to fix it. It’s mind-blowing to watch him operate. It really is – I'm blessed beyond all blessed to having. I had recently acquired a rocket scientist, roller skate on a regular basis. A friend of mine, I was talking to her about trying to find help, trying to find hard to find good help, qualified help. It's hard to find young people that want to work on old stuff. 

A lot these young kids don't want to get their hands dirty. I'm trying to find out, my ideal person will be somebody that's just retired, semi-retired and just don't – but don't want to sit at the house all day. She goes, “I may have a guy for you.” Well, turns out, this gentleman worked in the aeronautical industry for 30 something years for Rockwell and Honeywell. He actually worked in the machine – I call it a pre-machine shop. He called it a model shop.

The engineers, the people in the office would bring him apart and say, “Can you build this?” They just handed to him. This is what we want. Can you build this? He'd be like, “Well, sure.” He would be tasked with basically, building one, drawing all the diagrams, all the pieces, putting it together, making it work, then taking it all apart, doing all the specs to make it work and then have them send it to the machine shop to have these parts made. 

He actually has parts on two lunar rovers and the one of the Mars landers. He actually has parts on there. I joked when I met him. I was like, “So you're really a rocket scientist.” He laughs and said, “Well, kinda, sorta.” He wants to get out the house three or four days a week. He comes in there and the first course, the first thing that we had to test him is, our machine shop had gotten into disarray over the years, because we didn't have anybody in there every day of the week, like we used to have.

He walked in there and he's like, I said, “I know.” I said, “If you'll start here, you can well start in this corner and I will start working my way around.” I said, “That's fine. Whatever you need, you let me know.” He has been a refreshing – When he's there, it’s like, I was telling another guy this. It’s nice having a – I actually have a machine shop person there all the time. I’ll be going there and say, “Hey, can we make this part?” He goes, “Yeah, we can make that part.” He rattles off all these lingo of the machine in this world of the thousands and this and that. I'm saying like, “Was there a yes in there anywhere? Because I missed that.”

[00:36:05] G: Just make it run.

[00:36:07] AA: He has been just as humble and just as nice. I mean, give you the shirt off his back. 

[00:36:14] MH: That’s incredible. 

[00:36:15] AA: I mean, he’s just so unpretentious and to come from the field that he came from. I'm just, I said, just blessed the Lord, the Lord above sent him to me. I'll tell you what, I've been very blessed. Yeah, we do all our own, everything in-house and you can get anything done. The only thing I had to sub out is polishing of metal, some of the stuff we have that's got to be hardened. I sent a shaft off to a company, because they had to be re-ground, and re-polished. Some of the stuff we just don't have.

Rubber rollers, we buy them. They'll send them out to re-recover, and they'll strip all the rubber off, put a new rubber on. Some of that stuff, we don't have. As far as if not McMaster-Carr, and Granger has it, we typically buy it, bring it in, put it together. 

[00:37:00] MH: Fantastic. What are your guys's goals this year as a company? Do you have goals for this year, or for next year?

[00:37:06] AA: My goal is to make certain – I want to get to coming December 31st. That's my goal. Short-term goal. I will make sure I get to the end of the year. Make sure everybody got a job. Once again, we're small. We don't sit around and have meetings to decide when we're going to have the next meeting to come up with mission statements and vision statements. My goal was to make sure that everybody that worked for us has a paycheck. That's my number one goal. Everything after that, the customers will come second after that. Then after that, it's this much. I always spend some time with my family, if at all possible. 

[00:37:42] MH: Good luck with that. 

[00:37:43] AA: Yeah, yeah. It's difficult. I always say that things happen when they're supposed to happen. Good lord has that planned. The times when my kids were young and I was able to spend time with them, and now they're a little bit older, allows me a little bit more free time. I'm able to devote more time to the family business, which they may, or may not wanted at some point in time. Who knows? Because it's an industry that has gone by, we've lost a lot of the what we used to everything that was moved from one place to the other had a tag on it, everything. 

If it was a product and it was moved, you had a tag on it. Your bags at the airport had a tag on it. A coin bag that left the floor of the casino, it went to the back room, had a tag on it. I remember making tags. All I said on it was ‘nickel’. They had a certain color, and it was a certain size they said nickel. and I looked them, I was like, “Who needs a 150,000 tags that say nickel?” Of course, I was young at the time and didn't know no comprehension of the casino world. They had a tag for every bag of coins, everything had a tag on it. 

Of course, the computer systems and the on-demand label printers and barcodes have taken a lot of that industry away. You go to the airport, now when you get a – you get a tag to go in your bag, and where you get a label.

[00:39:07] MH:  Sticker. 

[00:39:08] AA: You get a sticker. Yeah. We used to, it was a tag. We used to do tags. That was one of the largest cans. I remember my dad walked in. I still remember to this day, he walked in and he finally got a company called the [inaudible 00:39:21], the company name was The Dobbs House. Basically, it was a company that basically, dealt with airlines. They were like the U-Line to the airlines. They would call them and say, “I need these tags and these tags,” and that's all they did was airlines. That's all they sell was airline products. They were down in here Atlanta and dad had tried to get in that business. Marion Manufacturing had that business. A lot of the bigger tag companies.

I'll never forget when dad got that, and how excited he was about finally landing that contract and how big of a contract that was for us at the time. I mean, you're talking – jeez back in the day. I mean, I would say, that would have probably been 15% of our business back in those days. It's how much business they brought us. I mean, they single-handedly brought us the equivalent of one person that did nothing but run their tags five days a week. That's all he did, was run Dobbs House tags. That was it. 

[00:40:26] MH: Wow.

[00:40:27] AA: It was a lot of business back in those days.

[00:40:28] MH: Interesting how one little thing, or a new technology or a piece of something can change an entire industry, right? You talked about on-demand, label printers – I bet you do. It's interesting, though. In the compressed air industry, electronics, different types of electrical motors taking the place of one is large industrial buildings, or high-rises, they use dampeners, right? Pneumatic dampeners to close and open different vents and dampers. Now that's all going electronic.

They're all — electrical motors are taking the place of pneumatic ones. All those compressors that were needed in those buildings are gone. Nobody saw that coming. It was this something that's cheaper and more reliable and has to be –

[00:41:16] AA: Stop right there –

[00:41:16] MH: It has to be maintained less.

[00:41:18] AA: I don't think it's more reliable. 

[00:41:20] MH: That's debatable, right? That's what they pitch it as. 

[00:41:23] AA: They’re pitching it. Yeah.

[00:41:25] MH: But it's interesting, right? 10 years from now, where do you see your industry?

[00:41:29] AA: That's a really good question. That depends on the manufacturing in the country. Honest to goodness, I mean, we don't go sell tags to Starbucks to put on a cup of coffee and not to get political, but that was one thing that didn't necessarily like Trump and all his stuff he did occasionally, but he believed in the manufacturing stuff in this country. I'm a strong advocate. I hate to see, although the port workers love to see the container ships pulling here, I despise the container ship. I think it's the worst thing this country ever deal was start buying products overseas.  Now, that being said, that's just my personal opinion.

We used to manufacture in this country. Manufacturing is not a glamorous job anymore. These kids coming out of high school, they don't look at a assembly line job as glamorous. Of course, everyone wants to be a multimillion dollar basketball player too, which isn't going to happen. 

[00:42:22] MH: Or Insta famous.

[00:42:23] AA: Or Insta famous. Right. 

[00:42:24] MH: Instagram famous. Isn’t that what they call it? I don’t know. 

[00:42:26] AA: Yeah. 

[00:42:27] MH: A YouTuber.

[00:42:28] AA: It's really going to depend on the manufacturer. To be completely honest with you, because as long as there's manufacturing in the country, there'll be a need for tags, because with what a little inkjet printer cost you and you got to run a 100,000 of them. You're going to go through some ink. If anybody is priced what ink cartridges at Office Depot, or when you go to print out those sheets of labels on your – you know how fast ink runs out. It can get not cost effective to do it that way. There’ll always be a need for tags. Synthetics is changing, has changed the paper industry a lot. But synthetics have their own drawbacks as well. COVID single-handedly has brought, well, I’m going to say – not say COVID, but everything that went along with COVID. 

[00:43:21] MH: The COVID Hangover. 

[00:43:22] AA: The COVID whatever, has single-handedly brought synthetics to their knees. The coated tag board that makes this tag red. It's called a clay coated stock. If you were to watch a machine that makes that, they take white paper and they run it through. If you've ever been to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and you see all the little donuts run through that sugar bath, that’s exactly how they make that tagboard. It’s run through a continuous liquid ink and then it’s squeegeed off the paper and run through a dryer. If you tear that paper out there, it's white on the inside. 

[00:43:54] MH: Yeah, you can see it on the edge. It’s white on the inside. 

[00:43:58] AA: They use some form or fashion of a latex and the chemical process that is a bond – I don't know how that chemistry works. Anyways, been talking with them at an earlier in the year. She says, “We couldn’t get any latex.” She goes, “If I can’t get any latex,” she goes, “I can't coat the paper.” Luckily, they found some, but I mean, it's COVID nonsense as, I say nonsense, but what is done to the whole manufacturing, the whole economic world has been challenging, to say the least. Infuriating to say the worst, but dealing with, I've had three paper increases this year.

Well, I’ll tell you about it, four. I just got one yesterday. Another fourth increase in paper and cardboard’s going up. Of course, labor goes up every year. Insurance goes up every year. That's been, like I said, that's a million-dollar question. If I was that smart, I'd probably pick six numbers and be waiting on a beach for the check to clear.

[00:45:09] MH: Very good. Very good. Let me ask you a question. Let's just say, manufacturing does continue to maintain or rise. Somebody that wanted to get into manufacturing, whether it's an entrepreneur, whether it's somebody want to be a plant manager, run operations, would you have any advice for them? Younger kids who do want to go that route? I know, I know, they're few and far between. If there is some out there, what advice would you give them?

[00:45:34] AA: Well, basic math and basic common sense will get you a long ways in the manufacturing world. Math for sure. Because I fussed at my kids all the time like, “Okay, what you learned in school? You need to learn how to add and subtract.” I say, “I don't care that you knew in 1912, that so and so crossed some river.” I said, “That's, that's wonderful to know. But if you can't add numbers and subtract numbers, you're doomed in this world.” Learning people.

[00:46:05] MH: Learning how to read people.

[00:46:08] AA: Managing people is a challenge in and of itself, just by itself. Don't profess to be great at it. I watched my mom and dad struggle through managing three and four employees. At one time, my sister and brother-in-law, we had probably 25 people. Now we only have about 12 to 14. It's interpersonal relationships. If you want to be a plant manager, you better be able to communicate. To start your own manufacturing facility, advice I'd give you is don't go into debt. Figure out a way to do it without going into debt, because it's hard enough to manufacture a product and sell it.

If you're pressed to have to do it, and the only thing you're doing is pay an interest to keep your head afloat, I know if my dad was sitting here right now, he’d tell you stay, out of debt. Stay out of the banks. My dad would have to go borrow money on Monday to cover the payroll checks he wrote on Friday, back when we were in Doraville, back when we were struggling. I remember him talking about that.

We had a lady at the bank at Trust County banking. Over at Sam Tucker road. The big T package back in the day for those that can remember Trust Company Bank. She would call my mama and say, “Hey, I just had a check come in. Can you cover it?” Mom looked at it. She know. She’s, “I'll be up in a minute.” That lady helped us. Back in the day, she could easily send that thing through and got the fees and got the bank charges. She was nice enough back in the day to call us up and say, “Hey, can you cover this?” Dad would run a pair and sign up.

Back in the day, they had to say it what they call signature loans, signature notes. At one point in time, my dad could sign a napkin and get a $100,000. Because his credit was – he lived off credit. He would tell you, if he was to give anybody that young advice, although it's nice to have credit, it's a lot better when you can pay yourself that interest and not to pay a bank.

[00:48:20] MH: I love it. I love it. Well, Greg, do you have any other final questions?

[00:48:25] G: No. I was going to ask the same thing about advice to people who have been – especially small businesses, people in your position. I’m sure you got some advice for them, but you've already answered that question.

[00:48:35] MH: Yeah. Al, I appreciate you coming in today. Why don't you tell listeners how they can connect with you, if you're comfortable with that? How they can contact Norcross Tag?

[00:48:43] AA: Sure. Well, we're in Jefferson, Georgia. Our number is 706-367-4763. My email is tagandlabels@gmail.com It's all spelled out. Nothing really is – Tag and labels. Tag is singular, labels is plural. If you have any questions, we'll be glad to help you any way we can. We have a fax number, 800-682-8247. That stands for NTC Tags.

[00:49:07] MH: Al, nobody uses faxes.

[00:49:09] G: They come with a time machine.

[00:49:11] AA: Yes. Well, we still have one.

[00:49:13] MH: Takes us back to the 80s.

[00:49:16] AA: We still have one. Actually, we get more faxes from some of our customers than we do emails.

[00:49:21] MH: No kidding.

[00:49:21] G: That's crazy.

[00:49:22] AA: We got one customer that does nothing, but faxes.

[00:49:25] MH: That's interesting. That tells you a lot about how long you've had the customers, right? That's a long-term business. That's just the way it is. That's what you guys have always done. That's very interesting.

[00:49:35] AA: I remember when we upgraded and went to the single-paper fax machine, instead of the roll paper. That was –

[00:49:43] G: That was a deal.

[00:49:44] AA: It was a big ticket item for us back in those days. I’ll never forget y’all. My dad to this day, he goes – still goes to the office every day. He's 89.

[00:49:55] MH: Your dad still does?

[00:49:56] AA: Everyday.

[00:49:57] MH: Really?

[00:49:57] AA: Goes to the office every day. Now, he does do a lot of sitting and drink coffee and listening to radio, but he's there.

[00:50:02] MH: That’s incredible.

[00:50:05] AA: He listens for that fax – You got a fax coming through, and he'll go get the fax. He'll stamp it, received, and bring it to me. Here's a quote, or here’s an order.

[00:50:11] G: He still, every day. Yup. I did not know that.

[00:50:14] MH: That's outstanding. I love that. God, I hope I live that long and I'm still have enough to at least come in, drink some coffee and listen to the radio.

[00:50:23] G: And receive faxes.

[00:50:24] MH: And receive faxes.

[00:50:26] AA: Well by then it might not be faxes. He always threatened, he was going to fire me and Elayne if we’re going to put a computer in his office.

[00:50:35] MH: I love it. Well, very good, Al. Thank you so much for coming in. It was a pleasure.

[00:50:39] AA: My pleasure.

[END OF EPISODE]

[00:50:42] MH: Well folks, that's it for this week's episode. Be sure to visit our website, www.theindustrialmovement.com to view today's show notes and get more golden nuggets of value that we have collected from manufacturing and industrial professionals in our archived episodes. On our website, you can also sign up for our newsletter and find links to join the Industrial Movement community on Facebook.

The Industrial Movement Podcast is where we discuss the people, the process and the equipment that drives American manufacturing. I'm your host, Morty Hodge, wishing you great success.

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