Design Automation Solution Drives Competitive Advantage at Racking Provider

TOM FITZGERALD: Hello, everybody. Thank you for participating and joining this call, this case study for Autodesk University 2022, very, very excited to be coming to you today and talking about this particular case study. My name is Tom Fitzgerald. I am a principal-- rather, I am a design automation practice lead at KETIV Technologies. And what we're going to be talking about today is design automation solution that drives a competitive advantage with one of our customers, Nucor Warehouse Systems, all right?

So let's start off, and I'm going to talk a little bit about myself and KETIV Technologies. And then I'll be introducing the other copresenters here on the call. And then we'll allow those individuals to talk a little bit about the solution in which KETIV technologies produced for new corp rights.

All right, so, myself, Tom Fitzgerald, I've been at AU many, many times, done a lot of different classes around design automation, not only for 3D models, But for 2D drawings as well I've done a lot of work around iLogic and custom add-ins for Inventor. So this is, once again, very excited to be back at AU this year doing another presentation.

So I've been in the manufacturing industry for about 26 years now, doing all sorts of different things, really, around heavy machinery, and surface mining equipment, and material handling. That's really my background, so really familiar with manufacturing, and fabrication. And the types of tools, and processes, and workflows, manufacturers have a tendency to use and really try to support them as they go through their journey of trying to do more with less and really leveraging those Autodesk products.

I have a lot of experience working with CAD applications, not just the Autodesk solutions, but also some solutions from PTC, as well as CATIA and SolidWorks, So a lot of background working with 3D CAD and all of those other tools that support 3D CAD technologies. I'm also a Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator. I felt like getting some information and some knowledge around the IT industry would be extremely beneficial for what I wanted to do in supporting manufacturing companies with CAD software.

Now, in my free time-- we all have a little bit of free time here and there. We're all not just working. But some of the things that I like to do, I'm an amateur World War II historian. And I just absolutely love the 1960s space race. So I do a lot of reading and research around those things.

But enough about me. All right, so let's talk a little bit about KETIV Technologies. So KETIV is an Autodesk partner. We've been around for quite some time, since 1983. We've been supporting customers, and selling software, and really trying to build out a long-term plan of working with companies to give them the best type of support they possibly can.

So what do we do here at KETIV? Like I said, we support the Autodesk products. But, really, it's about focusing on our customers and building long term-relationships, really understanding the needs of our customers and those manufacturers out there that maybe they don't exactly understand the best way of approaching something. Or maybe it's a bit of a struggle to acquire the skills and the information needed in order to do things a little bit better and really succeed as they go forward working within that particular industry.

So our main mission is to, once again, work closely with customers, truly understand what it is that they need in order to be successful and by working with them to drive through that journey of digital transformation.

So we have a number of different services and offerings that are available around design, data management, engineering services, and general consultancy as a whole. Some of the things that we do is around the KETIV Virtual Academy. That's a free offering that we have every single week where people like myself and other subject matter experts are out there doing presentations, coming up with different topics and solutions in order to share with everybody else.

So that's really the name of the game is really understanding how to deal with different solutions and then propagating and sharing that information. It's important that we all have that understanding of what is the best way of getting things done?

In addition to working with the Autodesk products, we partner with a number of other companies. I'll just leave that up here on the slide for you guys to review. But, really, the focus with KETIV is really supporting our Autodesk customers. All right, with me today, I have Eric. Eric Andres works for Nucor Warehouse Systems. So I'm going to let Eric talk a little bit about himself before he can pass it on to another individual from Nucor, Fredy Rodriguez, who will be talking a little bit more about the actual solution that KETIV had produced for Nucor Warehouse Systems. All right, Eric, go ahead.

ERIC ANDRES: Thank you, Tom, and welcome, everybody, to the presentation today, excited to be able to share our solutions and experience with everyone here. My name's Eric Andres. I'm the National sales manager for a division of Nucor, called Nucor Warehouse Systems. It's made up of two companies, formerly Hannibal Industries and Elite Storage Solutions, which we've brought together under one umbrella for a National Warehouse Systems platform.

Within my scope is all the commercial aspects of the business, as well as project coordination that we'll talk a bit more about here in a minute. I have 14 years of experience in various industrial markets, currently on the material handling and construction business, and formally within the building materials and fiberglass composites industries.

And prior to my role in the commercial side of the business, I actually came into this from the finance side. I was the former CFO of Hannibal Industries, which helped shape some of my approach as we go to market and as we develop tools for our commercial and back office teams.

As a way of education background from the University of Michigan, and I'm based in southern California in Pasadena, where I'm involved with organizations that put on both the Rose Bowl parade and the Rose Bowl game. And with that, I will pass the baton over to my colleague, Freddy Rodriguez.

FREDY RODRIGUEZ: All right, awesome, thank you, Eric. And thank you, Thomas, a pleasure to be here with everyone today. I am Fredy Rodriguez. I am the projects and engineering manager for Nucor Warehouse Systems. So a little bit about myself. I have seven years in the material handling industry, where I've done quite a few different roles in my background here.

So from design and engineering to project management and program management, I've had the opportunity to really understand how using different softwares to manage jobs from beginning to end, so engineering to installation, plays a role. I also have 12 years of Autodesk experience where I've had the opportunity to work in both 2D and 3D space. And then I have a background in civil engineering from Cal State Fullerton. I had the opportunity to work with KETIV and ultimately be the main PLC for driving the support of what we're going to be presenting today on this case study.

So it's a pleasure to have everyone. And with that being said, I'll hand it over to Eric to talk a little bit about NWS.

ERIC ANDRES: Thank you, Fredy. Let me give you guys a bit of background on our company in the markets that we serve. So Nucor Warehouse Systems in North America's largest palette rack system provider. So what we're talking about here is storage rack systems, typically going into large to mega scale distribution centers, right?

So on a smaller scale, you walk into your neighborhood Costco, you see the products stored on a palette rack system. That's what our company makes. But we do so for the largest distribution facilities across the United States, which are oftentimes in excess of a million square feet.

Pallet rack systems can go across a number of different products. The typical ones that we see in the marketplace most often are two-rack proprietary Nucor Warehouse Systems product that's made with a closed tube; cantilever rack, typically a product that you'd see in the lumber industry or other industries where you're looking to store long members; pushback racking systems; drive-in systems.

Systems can be made out of a roll form steel. Systems can be made out of a structural steel. But in all cases, our company is purchasing steel in the raw form. We're going to roll form that steel. We're going to weld it, and punch it, and cut it, and paint it, and ultimately, form a part that goes into a system.

The next part of the company is, really, on the service side of the business. And I think the most relatable context here is to really think about Nucor Warehouse Systems the same way that you would think about the general contractor on a construction site, right? So we're working as the integrator. We're taking products that we manufacture, such as the palette rack frames, and beams and installing those on the jobsite.

But we're also bringing a lot of products from outside of our business, other vendors that we're purchasing products for, that we're coordinating shipments and install on, right? And if you think about this as a really big jigsaw puzzle where you need the right pieces manufactured in the right way to arrive on site at the right time, it becomes very complex very quickly, right?

At any given site, we could be talking about a few hundred truckloads of material arriving to that site that needs to be staged, that needs to be coordinated, that needs to be installed alongside a building that, in many times, is being built as well, right? A lot of the warehouses that we see in today's market, especially for the e-commerce industry, are, normally, greenfields, right? So a lot of times we're working alongside a general contractor to put those systems in place.

So we have the material side of the business that we talk about. We have the service side of the business that does the design of those systems, the engineering, the install, the project management. And the channels to market that we go through can be pretty diverse as well, right? So there's a dealer distributor part of the market where you're generally producing products to stock, fairly standard. There's 3PLs. There's other integrators that do the same thing as us, but don't manufacture products, right? They just procure material from us.

But the real heart of the business is direct to the building occupier, right? And many of those customers are the household names that you see on the screen here, Amazon, Target, Cisco, Costco, Coca-Cola, Granger, where they're buying the racking directly and new Nucor Warehouse System is managing that, that turnkey project.

And we've done quite a few of these. We've done over $1 billion on the turnkey racking side, so a lot of volume, a lot of activity. And when you think about how do we go to market and what does that process look like, in almost all cases, we're typically looking at a very competitive landscape, right? So we're going in, and we're going in against two, three, four, five other manufacturers or integrators that are proposing a solution.

So the strategy, really, is how do we design and engineer a system that works better than the competitors at a lower total cost of ownership, right? And that's why the work that we've done with KETIV is so critical to what we're trying to do with the business is we really have to be efficient in that design stage. Speed, so speed's very important.

Like all construction businesses, we're being asked to quote. Typically, that turnaround time is not very long, right? The side of the building's going up. The building's going to be occupied on a date. We have to have racking installed and ready to go by that date. And by the time that we get the quote, that lead time is typically pretty short, right?

So we need to be able to take information from a customer that comes in in very diverse forms, take that data around what they're thinking or what their storage needs are. We need to be able to design that as quickly as possible and in a consistent manner. And then when we need to be able to put that together in a quote and empower our commercial teams to have the tools to go out and win those jobs, right?

And, in the perfect world, you'd have a system that also really informs your internal stakeholder's needs, such as production and manufacturing. So when you win that quote, you're not starting over again, right? So that's what we've really challenged Fredy and the team on, that you're going to hear a bit more about, is how do we develop better tools, better systems, better processes to be able to do that better than our competition, right? And I think a lot of the work that we've done with KETIV to really move the needle in this space.

And we talked about the customers that you see here. And we talked about how, many times, we're working alongside the general contractor in construction . companies. And, in a lot of ways, the construction industry is further down this road than what we are in the palette rack system side, right? Those companies are used to having integrated files. They're used to having 3D modeling, right? They're used to having that automation, and consistency, and reduction in errors that we want and expect from our system.

So that's how we came into this space of, really, how do we move the needle further along, get more caught up with the broader construction industry and develop solutions that improve our time to market, reduce errors, and ultimately be a competitive advantage for the commercial team to go out and win jobs, again, to competitors that aren't here today, that they don't have that software? And we've been able to do some pretty cool stuff with KETIV that we're excited to share today.

In terms of the Nucor Warehouse System, the Nucor name may be familiar to some folks. So Nucor is a Fortune 100 company, the largest US steel company. We are a division of Nucor, called Nucor Warehouse Systems. We're part of a collection of brands that make up other divisions within Nucor. You can see American buildings that does a lot of the metal buildings, insulated metal panels, rebar, et cetera.

And so the strategy for us is how do we continue to take on more of the construction space, right? How do we take on more of the building envelope to bring new solutions to customers? And we knew internally that doing things the way that we had always done within our systems was not going to get us to where we wanted to go, right? So we've put a big focus on systems and processes to allow us to scale, allow us to continue to take on more of that building space, and continue to drive top line growth. So, with that, I will toss it back over to Fredy to share a bit more.

FREDY RODRIGUEZ: Thank you, Eric. So in order to really understand what the solution was, I think we need to start with what the ask was. So Nucor Warehouse Systems being a fast-growing company, an industry leader, we knew that we needed to make a change in order to keep up with the market. So the question becomes is, how do we make that change? And that is where we leaned and reached out to the team.

So some of the items that we were able to identify as items that needed some change, it started with our cycle time. We talk about getting an opportunity to quote, and getting that quote turned around in a time where we can get the job, and ultimately communicate down to production, engineering, our install team so that we can have the adequate time to meet the customer's needs and ultimately gain the job.

So some of the items that we were going to do to achieve that, starts with automation. We dive into 3D drawings, but ultimately, looking to improve our efficiencies and deliverables, and of course being able to generate a bill of materials.

So we approached the team with several items that we wanted to start it with and attack. And ultimately, the first ask was, well, what's the goal, right? We have all these items that you want to address. We wanted to figure out, well, we'll get it narrowed down to what the goal is. And we were able to nail down some of the main aspects of it, which were, of course, to automate the process, right? How do we make this automated so that we can be more efficient and use our resources more adequately so that we can be successful in what we're doing today?

And some of those things were going to lead to a reduction in material returns by approximately 50%, once we ran the numbers in the study, and improved turnaround time by 75%. And that's the one that really stood out to everyone was improving our turnaround time so that our customers are ultimately receiving the best service they can from Nucor Warehouse System.

So I wanted to give a quick visual on what that looks like. So, in a normal world, we operate within Autodesk Inventor. The customer has a need. And we go ahead and one of our designers works in Inventor to generate a 3D drawing, which then creates the DWG file for our end user. Well, the main aspect was how do we generate 3D models where it's automated and still get to the end user with the DWG file?

So that is where, after a back and forth of months, we were able to introduce Rack Builder. And with that being said, go ahead into the next slide and talk more about what Rack Builder is. So Rack Builder, which the name kind of speaks for itself, is an Autodesk Inventor add-in plugin to the point where the items that are being customized are specific to what we do in our everyday business.

So what exactly does it do? I have a visual there, really, reflecting how the plugin is playing into our typical everyday Autodesk Inventor network. But ultimately, it's a table-driven interface where you enter the variables needed for your design. And then there's a 3D automated generated drawing for that.

So some of the additional items that we were able to do with Rack Builder were we talked about a bill of materials, right? The customer needs to know exactly what the components are in order to make sure that they're receiving a full package. So Rack Builder was able to automate that process.

We talk about when we're quoting, putting together a proposal. So with the use of Rack Builder, we're generating 3D drawings. We're generating the bill of materials. We were able to take that information and also automate the proposal aspect of it. Which is put that information into a proposal format so by the time we put all our variables into the table-driven interface, from the moment we put a proposal, we're really talking about a few hours, right? Where, typically, in our everyday process, we were really talking about a week. We talk about that 75% reduction in time and what it was going to look like.

With Rack Builder, so a couple of other things that we're able to do is not only 3D oriented, right? We take those 3D drawings, we go back to the previous slide, talk about how do we get that into 2D drawings for our customers to see? So ultimately, we were able to take Rack Builder and automate the process. And the beauty of that is, well, if you're able to automate the process, then what was the benefit, right?

Here we are talking about Rack Builder. And moving on to the next slide, I'll talk about the benefits and really highlight how that all came to be. So I have a very simple flowchart here of our process. RFQ stands for Request For a Quote. It all starts with our customers. And the very first thing we do is start with engineering. And that's sale lines, right? So we get an opportunity about the customer's looking for. And you have to engineer that opportunity.

But this is where it gets interesting, right? On the left side of the slide, we have our old process. Which was we get an opportunity. We engineer it. And then we dive into the design. We have drawings generated. And we have a bill of materials generated. And then sales puts together a proposal. So in that square, you see four different bubbles. And each of those bubbles can represent either one person or a process.

So the big picture was, well, how do we take that whole section and automate it into what, today we call, Rack Builder? So the current process is we get an opportunity. We start with engineering. We go ahead and implement the variables from the engineering to Rack Builder. And from Rack Builder, we generate a proposal. The proposal contains the drawings. It contains the bill of materials. It also contains the end solution that we're going to go ahead and put in front of our end users.

So when you take a look at these two aspects, we talk about reduction in time and some of our goals. And that's how the team was able to support us into achieving that. With that being said, I'll go ahead and pass it back to Thomas for some closing comments.

TOM FITZGERALD: Thank you very much, Fredy. I really appreciate that. Eric, thank you for your contribution as well. Everyone, this is just a shining example of a customer with a specific need and an objective, an initiative, in order to achieve some greater level of success.

And, really, that's what KETIV is here for. We want to support our customers and partner with them and, really, once again, truly understand the needs of how to proceed, forward, and how to scale and grow, and really understand, are there opportunities to do things better? Or can we do them faster? And, really, it comes down to understanding yourselves as a company, understanding your own processes, and really being able to identify those areas of opportunity for automation.

So, KETIV Technologies, we're here. We have a great and fantastic relationship with Nucor Warehouse Systems. Very, very excited to be able to produce a solution for them and allow them to now take the rack builder utility and leverage that to be able to be a bit more successful and then, of course, to drive that competitive advantage over those other competitors within the industry. And one of the final things that I want to say is this is one more example of how KETIV can work with you and then, of course, be that obvious choice for your Autodesk service provider.

So thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate that. And I'm looking forward to hearing some comments and some questions in the future. So thank you very much.