49: The Art of Curiosity in Manufacturing- with Jeff Beyle

a BROADcast for Manufacturers

Meet Jeff Beyle

Jeff started out writing software and then went to law school because he played softball with a bunch of lawyers and thought their work was interesting.

Then he got lucky and joined Coca-Cola and had the opportunity to move to Hong Kong. He spent 7 years there, focusing mainly on China and Korea. Jeff moved to Seattle to join Getty Images. Eventually, he had the opportunity to set up Getty Images’ business in Latin America. After he and his then-biz-partner sold that company to Getty Images, his current business partner convinced him to co-found SC Tech.

What are some of the advantages of not having a clearly aligned background in your current work? And what are some of the things that create obstacles or challenges?

Every time I go into a customer facility, I'm a little bit on my back foot. When you go to this nondescript building open the door and it's like opening a Christmas present because you never know what's going to be in there.

Technology, I don't understand all the details. It's much more of a user perspective because I just don't understand those details. And at this point, I'm not going to pretend like I'm going to get in there and figure it out. But you go into these buildings and you're like I don't know what I was expecting. But typically, this is not what I was expecting. And it's just so interesting. And I have a lot of known unknowns, but I have to go in with curiosity.

I have to go in and ask the expansive questions and ask follow up questions because I don't understand. But that really helps me understand. Can we help this business solve some problems, some pain point that they have? And if so, how are we going to do that in a way that works for them? Because I understand their business from their perspective, as opposed to bringing a lot of preconceptions.

What customers do you really enjoy working with the most?

It's like that’s passionate about their business and says, “Oh, it's thermal treatment of metal products.”

You're not going to go to a party and people are going to say, “Oh, that is the coolest thing I've ever heard of in my life.” But there's so many ins and outs of each business. There's so many different products being manufactured, and there are different stages of how they build up these products from different suppliers. And each one is interesting in its own way. You're open to being interested in and curious about how this stuff works. And it's so much fun to talk to somebody who's passionate, whether it's a business that they just joined or they bought it or it's a family business or whatever. It's pretty exciting to go in and talk to people who really love what they're doing.

And I maybe one of the benefits of the pandemic and supply chain mess is more focus on how much fun and how interesting supply chain and manufacturing can be. There's a lot of press about how much fun it is to work at Google and you can play ping pong and all that stuff. That's nice in a way, but really so many people would get a lot more satisfaction of [manufacturing]. I'm using my hands, I'm using my brain and I'm making something. And it's not a trivial process. There's a lot that goes into it, and I think we've ignored that for a while. And hopefully that's turning a corner.

And so much more…

Connect with Jeff!

LinkedIn

SC Tech

[phone]

Connect with the broads!

Connect with Erin on LinkedIn for web-based solutions to your complex business problems!

Connect with Lori on LinkedIn and visit www.keystoneclick.com for your strategic digital marketing needs!

Connect with Kris on LinkedIn and visit www.genalpha.com for OEM and aftermarket digital solutions!