[Transcript]
[00:00:00] Jan Griffiths: This is the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast. We are on a mission to bring you real conversations with the leaders who are transforming supply chains in the automotive sector. These leaders are true champions of manufacturing, and we're here to share their stories. I'm Jan Griffiths, your host and producer, and I'm joined by my co-host, Tom Roberts, Vice President of Strategic Industry Development at QAD.
[00:00:30] Tom Roberts: Great to be here, Jan. What I see every day is simple: manufacturers don't have a data problem, they've got an execution problem. This show is about how artificial intelligence, systems of action, and empowered teams can help close that gap.
[00:00:45] Jan Griffiths: Let's get into it. This podcast is powered by QAD RedZone.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Auto Supply Chain Champions podcast. And today, we are excited to talk to a CIO. Now, we've had a few episodes where we've talked to VPs of supply chain and leaders in the automotive industry within the supply chain space and we've talked about their journey, but today is special because we are gonna talk to the person, the leader, who has to actually make it happen. We talk on this podcast all day long about moving manufacturing from a system of record to a system of action. Our guest today is actually making that happen.
Today we're gonna talk to Tom Luttrell, the CIO at CSP. Tom has spent three decades as a CIO inside automotive and manufacturing with Federal-Mogul, Masco, Shiloh, RealTruck, and now CSP, so he knows this space. And Tom's gonna talk to us about his mission at CSP, and why putting real data in the hands of the people closest to the work is how manufacturing wins. Tom, welcome to the show.
[00:02:12] Tom Luttrell: I'm thrilled to be here, Jan.
[00:02:14] Jan Griffiths: So, tell us a little bit about CSP. How long have you been there?
[00:02:17] Tom Luttrell: Sure. I've been with CSP since summer of last year, and CSP has been around for fifty years. So, the company is a full-service supplier to the automotive and transportation industry. It's all about light weighting, advanced composite materials. We do modular roof systems, pickup boxes, et cetera. And my role at CSP is spanning basically what a traditional CIO would work on, right? Which would be enterprise application, data and analytics, cybersecurity, and now emerging AI governance.
So, when I came in about a year ago, the reason why I came in was to modernize our technology foundation for the company and to really, as to your point, Jan, around data, to build a data-first culture. And last but not least, is to make it measurably easier for our employees to get their jobs done.
[00:03:06] Jan Griffiths: I mean, that's a lot, Tom. So, you've clearly got a mission. You know what you're about, you know how that fits at CSP, but how do you do that, Tom? When you walk in day one, I mean, you can't just walk in and say, "Okay, this is what we're gonna do, this is what we're gonna change." Tell us a little bit about the journey. How do you do that?
[00:03:23] Tom Luttrell: Sure. So, I started, as any leader, regardless if it's technology, marketing, sales, whatever. When you join a new company, you have to start by listening. So, you have to understand the business problem you're trying to solve, right? That's what I did. Before building anything, before making any changes, I spent the first sixty to ninety days doing an honest inventory of the technology, the talent, the business processes, and most importantly, the trust that the organization had in the IT team.
So, from a technology standpoint, we had a very large portfolio of applications, and none of them talked to each other. So, if you think about trying to execute a business process like quote to launch across six or seven different applications that don't talk to each other, systemic waste existed. So the data was siloed, and the workflows were fragmented, and we ran a lot of risk because these systems were disconnected, and many of them were not supported. So again, my mandate was clear: reduce risk, improve the workflows, and simplify through consolidation.
Before starting anything, you have to understand why do those systems exist? It's not as though people woke up one day and said, "Hey, I wanna implement ten different systems," right? There was a very real business reason why the organization did what they did, and that's really where the work began. So, that inventory and then developing that strategy on how to meet the mandate, which was simplification, risk reduction, and automate, as much automation as possible.
[00:04:59] Jan Griffiths: When you say you have to look at the business processes. How do you do that when they're not yours?
[00:05:05] Tom Luttrell: Sure. Well.
[00:05:07] Jan Griffiths: They're in multiple different silos. I would think, do people just say, "Hey, what are you doing IT guy? Get out of my stuff."
[00:05:13] Tom Luttrell: Well, I guess I would start with, relationships matter right? At any level within an organization. And the reason why I joined CSP was because I had previous relationships with many of the executives that the CEO brought on board to this company. I knew their leadership styles. We had operated together. We had gone through the battles of ERP implementations together. So, there was an inherent trust that existed that I had of them, that they had of me, and that opened the door for me to go get in and start looking at business processes and coming at it though from the business angle. Not coming in and saying, you know, "Let's talk about how you're hosted," or, "let's talk about technical things." It was more around, hey, how do these systems that exist, how do they support your business processes? Not only today, but where we want to go as a company. And the reason why I'm here is because we want to build, right? We wanna build something very sustainable. We wanna improve the value of the company. Again, the business folks were like, "Yeah, we understand that the technology might not serve us, and these are the gaps that we see in the technology or even in the business processes."
[00:06:23] Jan Griffiths: When you and I spoke, several months ago, we talked about, my co-host Tom Roberts talks about this a lot, moving from a system of record to a system of action, and your eyes lit up. Tell me about what that means to you and how do you do that? How do you interpret that?
[00:06:40] Tom Luttrell: So, the traditional view of systems were right that they were master data based. And master data is extremely important, getting it right and having it drive your business processes are important, but the traditional ERP systems, that's all they really did, right? They were transaction processing systems. So, what we're doing is we're upgrading our transaction processing system to QAD adaptive, which is really gonna be that system of action, right? Which is, how do you set up agents? How do you have it sense when things are out of tolerance, and how do you have it notify you so that you can take action to improve an out-of-tolerance condition real-time when it's happening versus some reporting that happens at the end of a week or a month? So, that's how we're doing it.
[00:07:27] Jan Griffiths: What do you think the challenges are, Tom? I mean, that's a significant change. So, you've got a whole slew of people who are used to using this very traditional ERP, and now you're talking about Agentic AI. You're really taking it to a system that's gonna start to predict things, suggest things. Culturally, that's a huge change. How do you manage that change management piece internally?
[00:07:54] Tom Luttrell: Sure. And I would just add on to that, Jan, that not only are we doing our ERP system, but we're touching pretty much every other system that exists from a core business perspective. So we're either upgrading, replacing, or integrated everything that exists. So it's a pretty broad initiative over the next eighteen months. So, when you are going about that, you have to start with at least making sure that the new tools do what the old tools did. Not exactly, but at least in a familiar way, right? You don't wanna have any technical downgrades. We wanna make sure that the capabilities exist. So, I think that's the first thing is trying to create some degree of familiarity between the old and the new. And then you can start talking about, well, if it could do X, Y, or Z.
So, an example would be, in our main-maintenance management area, they have massive amounts of documentation around FMEAs, PFMEAs, you know, process controls. And the way they serve it up to our manufacturing facilities is document-based, right? So, if you have an issue, you have to go out and search some PDFs, right? So, when we think Agentic AI, what we wanna do is we wanna create an automated help desk solution for them, right? That they can query it, they can talk to that massive treasure trove of process data, and they can have it answer questions. So, if something's out of tolerance, they can say, "Have you ever seen blistering before?" Right? "And what would be the process control parameters that we would have, you know, that we would wanna tweak to make that blistering go away?"
So, to answer your question directly, it's around AI finding use cases or ways of using the technology that are maybe familiar, or if they're not familiar, that there's a analogy or corollary somewhere that it would be like, "Oh yeah, I've seen that somewhere else," where I go out to a bank website, and I can talk to an agent or things like that. Again, you're trying to bridge that gap between, this maybe the transactional systems that exist today and then some of those advanced capabilities that are gonna be existing with Agentic AI, Agentic ERP, and things like that.
[00:10:04] Jan Griffiths: What I love to hear you talk about is the fact that you're considering the human always, 'cause you're thinking about the technology in the hands of the user. And when I think about somebody trying to fix a machine on the shop floor, I can't imagine what that is gonna do to their lives when they're able to go in and find, and have an AI agent or a tool that can search a database, can search a, you know, 100 PDFs and say, "You know what? Try this, this, this, and this." Imagine the time save and what that does to OEE, which will have a direct impact on the output and the financials of the plants. So, I mean, something so simple can have such a massive impact.
[00:10:46] Tom Luttrell: Yeah, for sure. And we would even say from a quality perspective, you fix it quickly and upfront versus making a bunch of parts that might have that same defect in them. So again, you're putting the information in the hands of what I would call the point of impact, which would be the maintenance tech at that specific press looking at that specific blistering or whatever it might be. So, to your point, yes, it's faster. There's a bottom-line impact. There's also a customer impact where we're not releasing parts to them that might have defects in them.
[00:11:17] Jan Griffiths: Now, you're talking about putting data in the hands of the maintenance tech on the shop floor. Let's talk about shop floor operators. Often overlooked, the largest percentage of the population of employees in any manufacturing company, and that's one of the things I personally love about CSP. We have an internal podcast. We QR code it. It's using technology to reach out to and connect to the people on the shop floor.
Now, you're coming in as the CIO, and you're thinking, "Okay, so now I need to put actual data in the hands of the shop floor." 'Cause so often, we just have whiteboards on the shop floor, and then you can't read the writing, or there's a document that somebody has to print with the status of that line or the status of the machine or the quality problem. And sometimes it's updated, and sometimes it isn't. We've seen those problems time and time again. Tell me about your vision for the shop floor employees.
[00:12:18] Tom Luttrell: Sure. So, that's another one of our initiative that we'll be starting later on this year. We're gonna selecting a manufacturing execution system, so for our shop, for our employees, right? To do their work.
Our vision for them is to make things as visual as possible. So again, when we're talking about a press and what's the standard throughput for that press, right? How is it running? Is it running efficiently? Is it running ahead? Is it running behind? Making it very easy and visible for an operator to walk up and be able to assess the condition of his or her operation. So, that would be one part of it.
The other part is, if there is transactional data that needs to be entered, finding ways to do it as efficiently as possible, through scanning, through automated counting. Instead of having somebody counting production, have the PLC count and report back production to the MES system.
So ways that we can take maybe some of the less value-added or non-value-added transactional data and get it automated. Scrap data, right? So, if a part is scrap, have it be detected, automated in an automated way, and have the operator, if they have to look at it and say, "Well, this is the scrap reason code," make it easy for them. Not have three hundred different codes, right? Have the strategic view so that they can report scrap and categorize it correctly, so then again, going back to the maintenance tech, they can come back, and look at it and say, and even in the maintenance tech, the operator could take a picture of it and have that create an automated work order for the maintenance tech to say, "Hey, we have this condition going on at this press."
[00:13:57] Jan Griffiths: I love that because again, you're considering the human, you're considering the user and how they're gonna think and feel about the technology and how they're gonna interact with it. And I think honestly, Tom, in the past, we've missed that element.
[00:14:12] Tom Luttrell: Sure. I would agree with you on that. It's hard though, right? I mean, you know, as technologists, we focus a lot on trying to do things right and implement things flawlessly and the capabilities, more and more capabilities within the solutions versus, hey, what are the strategic few things that we can deploy to make the operator or the employee's life easier?
[00:14:32] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. And you're obviously in the technology field, but technology is directly linked to speed. And we know that to be successful in our beloved automotive industry, speed is the competitive advantage. It's speed of execution of the actual product on the shop floor, but it's speed of making every single decision around that. And there's so many systems that we have in our companies today that are filled with bureaucracy and, like you say, a lot of transactional data. Lots of friction points where something can't get passed from one person or one silo to another because it's in a different system. All of these things have to be looked at, and that's a massive undertaking, and it's one that you're well on your way with. You have a mission, and you're way down the execution path, but my question to you is this: There are many CIOs, leaders of the IT, the tech function in automotive right now who are perhaps starting the journey or in the early days of the journey. What advice would you give them?
[00:15:39] Tom Luttrell: That's a great question. So, I grew up in technology, from an early day of being a programmer, making it into leadership positions. And then, I realized that coming at things always from the technical standpoint, I would lose my business counterparts. So, I would come in just excited about a new program that I wrote that would satisfy their needs, and I remember one of my users at Federal Mobile was, he would look at me and he'd say, " I have no idea what you're talking about." Right? So, he said, "Come back in here and talk about things in a way that I can understand."
So, it's really about framing the issue in the business context. So, that's what I coach my son on this, right? I would coach any of the leaders that I work with in the IT spaces. You have to primarily come at things from what problem are you trying to solve from a business perspective? 'Cause that's where you win. If you can win 'em over to say, "I understand you. I understand your pressures. I can't feel them directly, but I can conceptualize them, and I will bring you solutions or capabilities to help relieve those pressures." So, always come at it from a business perspective, either talking about ROI, time, consolidation, expense, speed, whatever it might be, efficiency. Those are the terms that business leaders understand.
[00:16:54] Jan Griffiths: Yeah, I think that is really, really solid advice. I've seen it so many times in my career, not just with IT, but we're so much in our silos, we get entrenched in our silos. And me with supply chain and purchasing, you're in your silo and off you go, and you think it's the greatest thing in the world, right? But if you cannot relate that to the other people in the organization, and like you say, ultimately, you've got to solve a problem. And that's one thing that I learned when I interview people in Silicon Valley cultures and startup cultures. They have relentless focus on the pain point, on the customer problem. Relentless. That's all they can think about, and everything has to be focused on that. And we've got a lot to learn in legacy automotive land to get to that point.
[00:17:42] Tom Luttrell: Yeah, and I think cybersecurity is a perfect example of where bridging that gap is so critical, right? I've been through cyber events in my career, and what we tend to do as IT folks is we tend to slam in a bunch of technical controls after an event. We lock things down. That's never gonna happen to us again. So, the good news is, yes, we've mitigated risk. The bad news is the business can't get anything done because everything's so locked down so tight. So trying to find ways of bridging the gap between a technical control and what business outcome or what is it mitigating, and then relaxing where the risks are maybe less, right? Or finding analogies in their personal life that they can understand. For example is, you would never share a password for your bank account. You want multi-factor authentication when you're doing banking transactions, right? So, we would wanna train or treat our business transactions with a similar level of concern because they're just as important from a business context.
[00:18:41] Jan Griffiths: Well, Tom Luttrell, thank you so much for sharing your vision and your journey with us on the podcast.
[00:18:48] Tom Luttrell: You're welcome, Jan. It was a lot of fun and hopefully I'll be invited back at some point in the future.
[00:18:52] Jan Griffiths: We would love to have you back to talk about your success, which undoubtedly you will have. Are you up for that?
[00:18:58] Tom Luttrell: I'm absolutely up for that.
[00:18:59] Jan Griffiths: Thank you.
[00:19:00] Tom Luttrell: You're welcome.
[00:19:01] Jan Griffiths: Now, interest of full transparency and, of course, authenticity, we have to fallen the sword here and say that we had some technical problems. And we were not able to bring, Tom Roberts in for the recording, but Tom has indeed listened to the episode with Tom Luttrell, and as a former CIO in the tier one space in the auto industry, I am very interested to know, Tom Roberts, what are your thoughts?
[00:19:27] Tom Roberts: There's a lot here, Jan. And coming from a career in IT before I joined QAD, I would have a lot of the same points. And I think he brought some new things to this. One of the things that really stuck out to me was, obviously using QAD and talking about your ERP and QAD as a system of action, not a system of record. I was having a conversation with a longtime colleague yesterday, and we were talking about core ERP. And again, I was in another ERP solution before I joined QAD. I've seen a number of them. A lot of the core functionality outside of what I think we're seeing in AI, I don't know if it's really changed a whole lot since I first saw ERP in the late nineties.
Now, I know everybody's gonna bristle at that, but what I mean is you could create a journal entry then, you can create a journal entry now, and I don't think all of the transactional capture is vastly different. You can run an AR aging report back then, in the mid-two thousands, you can run one now. And there's some good different dimensionality characteristics in there now that might not have been there, and the reports are probably easier to create now, but the end result of what it's showing you, thirty, sixty, ninety, M and S too, you know, it's a lot of the same things that we saw many years ago before the advent of AI.
Now, when he talks about system of record becoming a system of action, well, now, not only do you get the what, like I have scrap. Well, now you can get why, because you have the intersection of so many different data sources, and you can say, "I have scrap because I worked in a certain area that required a certain temperature in the plant or certain settings on the machine, and they weren't calibrated to the correct settings, and it generated scrap."
Or the user wasn't trained on the machine, and it tells me, "This user was logged in, who performed the action, was not certified for the machine. It's likely that the probability is high that this contributed to the scrap." You get the why. Then, it can get to the, now go take this action or even jump in front and say, "Hey, we're preventing this particular scenario." And I know this is really sensitive one in automotive. You don't necessarily wanna stop the line, but you have the option to maybe create some of these preventative scenarios to say, "Hey, the way that the data lines up to AI right now is not a good scenario, so maybe we need to warn somebody."
So, I really appreciate what was being said about that. Frontline over dashboards. And again, in IT, I will admit, you always want to bring the wow factor. You have to bring the nuts and bolts, you have to bring the ones and zeros, but you do, at the end of the day, you know, IT can be sometimes, kind of a back office function. And you wanna do something that shows, "Hey, we really are capable of giving some great dimensionality, some great information and action," but often, it's just get the shop floor better. We're trying to get products out the door. We're trying to get quality products out the door on time without incurring premium freight at optimal cost, and it's the shop floor that runs all. So again, that really resonated with me, Jan, as well.
[00:22:28] Jan Griffiths: Yeah, I really love the way he talks about putting the data in the hands of the people on the front line. He's clearly on a mission to make that happen, and that, quite frankly, warms my heart. And he's also talking about looking at user-friendly type of technology.
[00:22:46] Tom Roberts: Yes.
[00:22:46] Jan Griffiths: He's not in pure IT world. Tom Luttrell sits in the business world, and he knows what he needs to do to bridge across different functions, different entities, and he's focused on the business impact, and I love that.
[00:23:03] Tom Roberts: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that is the key. Yes, we've been working on Pokey Oaks for many years, trying to funnel people into a very specific process and different things. But when you do have the process discipline, but you have the ability to see data and report out on other data points, when you can bring both of those together, that's when I think you can really shine because you have a very disciplined process, but when you get exceptions to that process, you need to be able to collaborate. You need to be able to get information back to the community around you in the plant so that other people can act. So again, incredibly important.
The other thing I think that really stuck out was, he talked about the career lesson that sells AI internally. So, he learned something earlier in his career. He actually mentioned Federal Mogul. A Federal Mogul user said to him, "I have no idea what you're talking about." So, tom is trying to explain something to the user, and he was too technical. He felt-- I think he was a little too wonky or a little too, just far too much into the weeds in the technical area, and the person just didn't speak the same business language.
So, what he was saying is frame everything in business terms: ROI, time, speed, efficiency. If you're talking with people in finance, internal rate of return, stick with the things that are applicable to the people that you're talking to. And again, I've had some good days and where I think I did well in IT, and then there were other days where it was just too technical, and I needed to direct myself and my organization to make sure we're speaking in business terms. And again, I really appreciate those comments.
[00:24:41] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. And I'm thrilled Tom Luttrell has agreed to come back on the show six months from now and let us know where he's at on his journey, so that'll be really interesting.
[00:24:49] Tom Roberts: Fantastic. Incredible.
[00:24:51] Jan Griffiths: Okay. Well, thank you, Tom Roberts, and, hey, you know, this is life. We have problems from time to time, but we figured out a way to make it work and get your voice heard on this episode of the Auto Supply Chain Champions podcast. We'll see you next time.
[00:25:06] Tom Roberts: Thanks, Jan.
[00:25:07] Jan Griffiths: We want to hear from you, our listener. Tell us what are your challenges right now? What conversations do you want to hear across the airwaves on this podcast? Drop us a comment on our podcast website. The link is in the show notes.