Say Goodbye to Rework: Find Out How We Saw the Benefits of Using TigerStop

MIKE ARNOTT: So the class is titled The Benefits of Using TigerStop. I kind of consider my entire career a success story with TigerStop. I started off in a store fixture manufacturer. I have a woodworking background. So that's my expertise.

So the store fixture manufacturer in Central Illinois in 1996 that I bought a TigerStop and put it on a drill. And this was not just a drill press. It had 96 different drill bits on it. And it usually took the lead man anywhere from two to four hours every day to set this up over the different setups that we had.

When we put a TigerStop on this product and it revolutionized that drill, it took four to six hours a week away from that lead man, and we had a union grievance filed against us, because it took four to six hours away from the lead man. It took a job. And the lead man was like, union, don't, don't! I hate that drill. I love this TigerStop. It's doing me so good. Well, it was just a slap on the wrist to say, hey, guys, if you ever do something like this again, please be sure to tell us.

So moving on a couple more jobs, I came to a cabinet shop in Kansas City and started working there as a manager. And they had a TigerStop stop there. And lo and behold, they were using it to cut out all their cabinet parts.

And so I started reading through all the information about TigerStop. And I realized that this TigerStop has the ability to optimize or nest all of your parts. And we weren't doing that. So I got it set up, started downloading the cut list, started optimizing, and nesting all the parts, and it was working great. We were having less scrap and everything like that.

About four months later, after doing this, my lumber supplier called me. His name was Gary. And he said, Mike, just want to make sure everything's going OK. You guys are buying a lot less lumber from me lately. I said, Gary, we're buying 100% of our lumber from you and we're busier than ever. He goes, well, you're buying about 25% to 30% less.

So I went and double-checked with my accounting department. And sure enough, we were spending less money on lumber. I wonder why? We started to optimize and nest all the material. A month later, I saw a raise in my paycheck.

So then I went to work for a dealership selling TigerStops as a dealer rep, because I decided that I'd rather sell the equipment than use it. And I was very successful selling TigerStops, putting them into different manufacturers. It was a great way to introduce technology. And then a few years later, here I am working directly for the factory.

And again, my background expertise is in woodworking. Todd's background and expertise is in this industry. And that's why I'm going to kind of let him take the class from there. But do you want to go ahead and click to the next slide, and we'll just quickly explain what a TigerStop is?

TODD LIEBBE: [INAUDIBLE]

MIKE ARNOTT: Is your microphone on?

TODD LIEBBE: --when they acquired that IP for me. And so went to work for Autodesk. And I'm all about layout. How do we really eliminate that tape measure? And that's what a total station did is it really took away that whole reason why we had to dimension all of our points and so forth, because you set up your total station and away you go.

So I've never been a big fan of the tape measure. So any time I see an opportunity to move away from having to pull those dimensions, I'm all over it. So today we're going to show you how we drive a TigerStop both from a CSV file and also from the model.

MIKE ARNOTT: So the first question is, what is a TigerStop? And simply put, that's a TigerStop. It's an extrusion up to 30 feet long with a controller pad to control its movement. It has a 12-volt DC motor. It's run by a belt, so that golden carriage right there can slide back and forth and position your machine.

So when somebody says, what's a TigerStop? Specifically, that one part right there is a TigerStop. So go ahead and move on up. You're going backwards.

TODD LIEBBE: Yeah, there we go.

MIKE ARNOTT: Typically, though, TigerStop is set up on a machine, with tables, with accessories, and it looks more like that in the cutting station. The TigerStop does not care what type of tool is in the middle of it or next to it. All it cares about is where the saw blade is. That could be a chop saw, an upcut saw, a drill press, a punch, a shear, a tube snapper, a tube bender. It could be anything. And as long as you can calibrate to a specific zero point, that's what the TigerStop wants.

So all TigerStops can be used in two different fashions. The first fashion is is you set the stop to a specific dimension and you cut. Your finished part comes out in between the stop and the saw blade. That's the way my woodworking guys like to use it, because they have to deal with knots and defects in their lumber. So they use it as a stop, where they're sliding the part up to the stop and cutting the part.

The way the metalworking industry likes to use my TigerStop is as a pusher, because in general, 100% of the material is clear and free of defects. So they will load their entire stick of material up, in this case, on the left-hand side, it will process through. And the finished parts come out on the right-hand side. And in that situation, generally, they're pulling a label off and sticking a label to the part to explain all the part information, what spool it's from, what elevation it's at, what room number. Whatever information you get in your CSV file, we print on that sticker. So a very similar setup right there is exactly what we're showing downstairs.

TODD LIEBBE: So before we get through the whole deck here, just to kind of get an idea of who we have in the audience here, it sounds like we have some MEP contractors. Give me a show of hands of who are MEP. General contractors? I think there's a few GCs, some ceiling as well.

So you're all cutting a variety of materials here. And I imagine most of you have something in your fabrication facility that's cutting those materials now. So 95% of the installs we make are basically hooking it up to an existing cutting device you already have.

MIKE ARNOTT: Exactly. The machines I mentioned, most often, the TigerStops are being attached to something you already own.

TODD LIEBBE: So how to feed a TigerStop. When you look at how you send that information down to a TigerStop, there's all kinds of different methods of getting that information in. And one of them is just a CSV export.

So you're here at AU. So I imagine there's a good share of you that are doing models here. And so you spend all that time building that beautiful model with all that correct dimensional information only later then to create maybe a CSV file or even maybe a printed out list that you can go in and you can just hand-type that information directly into a TigerStop. You can also then put that information in through a CSV. So if you've got cut lists and you're able to export information out of your-- whether it's Revit, AutoCAD, Inventor, different packages you guys could be using, we can do an export, create that Excel file, and we can read that cut list directly into a TigerStop. So really two different methods of feeding the device.

We at GTP, we're a reseller of TigerStop. But we said, hey, look, CSVs are in some ways a dead document. And what I mean about that it's a snapshot in time. And for my piping contractors, a lot of times you'll create a spool drawing, and it'll get out to the fab shop, and maybe that center to face dimensions's different or that weld gap changed. All of a sudden, you're cut list from a CSV is incorrect now. And so we can modify and make some of those corrections directly in STRATUS.

So Autodesk is all about Forge these days. You can't go to one class and not hear about Forge this, Forge that. So STRATUS is built on top of the Forge application.

When you start to look at what the ROI is for a TigerStop, most of you here, if you're not using a TigerStop, what are you doing? You're pulling tapes. And you're pulling tapes every day. Every time you pull that tape, there's so much time that's involved in pulling that tape. There's errors that occur when you're transcribing that information from a list, sending it into the device.

Cut list. As far as for that cut list time? When you're having to generate a CSV, it takes time. When you're having to create paper, it takes time. So depending upon what method, there's going to be a different payback based upon that method.

So this is an ROI calculator. And at the end of the class, I tell you what, come see me, and I can send you this Excel sheet. You can plug all the numbers in and you can see what kind of ROI you'll get from a TigerStop. It is one of those ROIs-- and does anybody in the class have a TigerStop yet? There you go. It saving any sort of time there, John?

AUDIENCE: It's the start of a paperless society for us. It really is. No tape measures is the goal of our [INAUDIBLE]. And this the first step.

TODD LIEBBE: First step in the process here. I've got a buddy of mine, Stefan Snell, who is out in California. And he's really the one who kind of got me excited about the TigerStop. And he's literally telling me they were saving 60%, 70% in measuring ROI as far as the faster running that information through their spooling process and also, as Mike was pointing out, the waste. So handling goes down.

And when I talk about handling, when I do go into a fabrication facility and when they're cutting, most of the time they're cutting in a method where they have a stop, and maybe it's a C clamp with a piece of wood just to a fence, and they butt that up, and they move the material down. They cut that piece. And then they physically have to take that off and then move it to a next location.

Well, with a TigerStop, when you're in that push method that Mike was talking about, we have our saw here, we've got our 24-foot table over here, depending upon the material length that you're cutting, and it's just a push method that we're going to push all that material to the right. So if I have five pieces that are 3-foot, it's going to cut that 3-foot one, push it down, 3-foot one, push it down, 3-foot. I grab all three and I move it. That's what we talk about when we talk about lean. We talk about handling less.

The waste. I don't know how-- I mean, when Mike tells me about the waste here, it is just a huge issue when you're having to try to nest things in your head, and somebody's trying to pull a stick out, and they get three or four cuts from that. And then they have a little 4-foot piece, and they're saying, hey, I'm going to save that. So it goes over in another bin. And then they have a piece 3-foot 10, and they're trying to remember, though, I'm going to pull from that bin. It's too much. And so there's a huge savings in less waste with the TigerStop.

MIKE ARNOTT: Well, Todd, let me give you an example of waste. When I was at Gallo Mechanical down in Louisiana installing theirs, the first job they ran, they got a 96% yield. And this was a very large job. And I'm actually using that cut list for a demo down there. And I asked the purchasing guy, if you know that there's 10,000 lineal feet of pipe in this building-- that's finished pipe-- how much do you order from your supplier? And he told me 25% more.

So I said, we just got a 96% yield. So you're talking you can order 5% more. That's just huge.

TODD LIEBBE: And when you look at that waste, for a lot of my MEP contractors that are cutting copper and stainless, there's a lot of money in that little 1-foot, 2-foot section. So any time we can make a tighter nest, you're going to save a lot of money.

Rework. When we talk about rework, the big savings with less rework happens when you do model-based cutting, because as I was mentioning as far as with a platform like STRATUS, you're able to open up that element and be able to look at that and say, hey, look, I want to adjust my weld gap or my center to face change. I can adjust that right then and there, and my cut list is going to be right.

So this system can save you a ton of time in not having to do rework. And even if you're using a CSV file, mistakes happen. You pull that material cut list from a piece of paper, I can tell you, when somebody's hand-typing that in, they're going to make a mistake at some point in time.

How many of you here, when you make a cut, have to mark that piece when it comes off the saw with some sort of nomenclature as far as, hey, it's this part of this spool? Any of you do that type of marking? So I go to MEP shops all the time and general contractors. And I will tell you, that tool on the left there, that Sharpie, it gets a workout every day.

But how many of you have a QR code on your badge today? Isn't that what we're trying to move to, where we can put a QR code on the item? So TigerStop is able to produce a QR code.

And we go a step further with STRATUS when we produce that QR code in that that QR code is going to know that, hey, this is my piece, this is my cut length, but it also knows how it lives in the model. So it knows that, hey, I'm a piece now, but later I'm not going to be a piece. What do I become after I'm a cut? I become a spool sometimes, right?

So by having that QR code-- and you can have three or four pieces-- we're going to nest that all together and we'll be able to track that whole workflow. So if somebody's out at the job site doing an install, they can scan that QR code and mark it as installed. So multiple areas of savings with a TigerStop.

So as you look here as far as what application, you'll see a whole list of different cutting tools up here on the screen. So as we said earlier, the TigerStop is a single-access [INAUDIBLE] machine that can be hooked up to all kinds of different devices here.

Cast iron. If people have snap cutters in the room? I thought it was crazy when one of our clients said, hey, Todd, I want to experiment [INAUDIBLE]. And they are now snapping all their cast iron.

For my duct contractors in the room, what do you guys cut all the time? Tie rods, angle, all that information? That lives in the fabrication product. And I know a lot of you here use that fab product. I don't know. How do you guys cut your materials? Chop saw or--

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

TODD LIEBBE: Chop saw's probably one of the most prevalent hookups to a TigerStop, where you grab a saw, grab that list, drive it directly with the tool here. So iron workers, table saws, drill presses, all kinds of different tools we can work with.

What are you cutting? And that's when I mentioned, like, the cast iron. You can cut a multitude of different materials with the system. And all those materials come in different length. And the system can recognize that different length, both and as far as when you're driving it through Excel and through the model-based method. So we'll look at that length of pipe, and we're going to nest that accordingly based upon the length of the pipe. And that's going to flow depending upon what methodology you're using to feed the TigerStop.

What's really cool with STRATUS is that we're building what we call smart tools in the system. And what a smart tool is is that it knows that, hey, I am a cut station and I can do this. So we can look at the model and we can know what to feed the model.

You want to talk a little bit about the different size TigerStops, Mike, as far as what it can push?

MIKE ARNOTT: Yeah, the way that I explained earlier that TigerStop can push, pull, position, whatever. If you do go to our website, you'll see quite a few different models. We've got the TigerStop stop we've got a TigerRack, a TigerTurbo and a Tiger HeavyDuty. All those operate exactly the same as in software, as in positioning, as in pushing, it's just a matter of weight and length. So we've built a TigerStop for the railroad industry that was 105 feet long once and that was our TigerRack system. And then we also have mechanical ink is needing to push, say, 300 pounds, so we use our TigerTurbo system on that. So we have definitely a system that can go up to 2,100 pounds pushing and all the way down to just small copper pipe. And like I tell people when they say, well, which one do I choose, well, you really don't get to choose. You tell us what you're pushing, what length you need, we'll tell you what model you need.

TODD LIEBBE: Length of the material as far as-- that's going to adjust as far as that size table.

MIKE ARNOTT: Yeah, well, when we discussed real quick about whether it's a stop or a pusher-- whatever you're sizing the machine-- if you're using it as a stop, of course, you just need a machine as long as the longest finished part you're cutting. When you're processing it as a pusher, you need to have the machine slightly longer than your incoming material.

TODD LIEBBE: So when you're sending that material you want to have that arm-- someone out of harm's way.

MIKE ARNOTT: Correct.

TODD LIEBBE: So that's why you want to have a little bit bigger table than what--

MIKE ARNOTT: 20 foot incoming material, we usually size the machine 22 feet long.

TODD LIEBBE: So that's the infeed table, what do you think you need for an outfeed table? What size would you want for an outfeed? Any thoughts there?

MIKE ARNOTT: A lot of time is wherever the wall's at.

TODD LIEBBE: A lot of time wherever the wall's at. But when you--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

TODD LIEBBE: Yeah.

MIKE ARNOTT: That's happened.

TODD LIEBBE: That has happened as well. So the reason I say how big an outfeed table-- we've sold multiple of these units across the country and we've sold tables as short as 10 feet outfeed, 12 feet-- I tell you my contractors really like the 20-foot outfeed table because why? It's a push method that Mike was saying. Most of you are cutting metal and not wood in this room, although there may be a few woodcutters for your form work.

But when you start cutting with a TigerStop it nest that material, it puts it in there, you take a cut, the actuator is hooked into-- as far as when you're doing model-based cutting-- it knows it just cut that piece, it'll even recognize in the model as being cut. And then it's going to push to the next piece, and the next piece, so your operator is just doing cut, push, cut, push, cut, push. It was a 20-foot stick and at the end of that because the nest, I mean, you see it-- I mean, as far as-- it can fit in a bucket a lot of times the amount of copper at the end of the day. But what you don't want to have is that you want that 20-foot outfeed table, so it doesn't go crashing off the end. Because you'll cut that whole 20-foot stick. You don't want to have a shorter table. Because, as you nest that and so forth, you just want it all to be able to sit on the table.

So we talked about CSV cutting, we're going to also talk about model-based cutting here. So model-based cutting can come from two different ways to feed it here and that is through Revit or AutoCAD. Few hands here as far as who's using AutoCAD or Revit in the room? I imagine the majority of you are using it to some extent, all right. So we can take that information and we can publish it to STRATUS. So BIM 360 Docs is a requirement of our application. You can take that model after you've had that kumbaya moment, Adam, where you're saying, hey, everything fits, everything works, now it's time to go build that. Take that information, publish it up to STRATUS, and now it's going to live in the cloud where we can drive that CNC equipment.

Prefabbing of spools. So I'm only giving you one example today, but STRATUS can handle a multitude of different material types. So whether it's wood, whether it's ductwork, piping-- we can go into the system and dependent upon how your schedule is and how the GC is driving that schedule, there may be certain areas in your model that you're saying, [INAUDIBLE], hey, we need to release this area for fabrication. So what STRATUS enables you to do is to go into that model and we can create work packages and advance work packages where we can grab all that information. And we'll filter it down, we'll kit it up, and we'll push it directly into STRATUS, and then we'll do all the nesting for all that pipe.

So here's the basic TigerStop here at a shop. You'll see the infeed table is right here to the left. The outfeed's table is to the right. What's that saw on that one, Mike?

MIKE ARNOTT: It's an OMGA chop saw. It's An Italian made chop.

TODD LIEBBE: Yeah. There is a certain blade-- I can't remember if it's the 110-tooth--

MIKE ARNOTT: 108-tooth [INAUDIBLE] blade.

TODD LIEBBE: That blade, when it cuts-- I mean, the amount of time it takes to clean that cut afterwards is just-- I mean, it's minimal.

MIKE ARNOTT: Very minimal.

TODD LIEBBE: QR code on the right here, so every time that gets cut then there's a label maker to the right of that saw. So we're going to put a QR code every time it makes a cut and that list just comes down. So you make one cut, one label. Second cut, second label. Third label, fourth label-- you grab all those labels, you peel them off, and you just walk right down the line and throw them at each piece of your pipe, conduit, wood, whatever you're cutting here. You want to talk about the Emanuel input to as far as on the right here? Because you can also see-- we've been talking a lot [INAUDIBLE], Mike, and model-based, but you can also just go right to the keypad.

MIKE ARNOTT: Yeah, correct. A lot of times what will happen is that there is a defect, or you missed a cut, or something happened to it-- all the TigerStops, even if you're running the cut list, can we run at manual mode where you simply type in the dimension. And if you do have a defect or something like that-- you dropped a piece of pipe on the floor or whatever-- if you just save that label that was printed off-- you got a 4-foot, 4.2 inch part needed cut-- so you just go type that in and manually use it as a stop then to finish it.

TODD LIEBBE: As much as we talk about cutting from the model and cutting from a CSV file, a lot of times shops get on a piece of drywall or something, right-- hey, make these four or five cuts. And, I mean, you can type that into that keyboard so quickly and be making all those cuts for those items that haven't been modeled or haven't come from a CSV file.

Spool dimensions. We're going to dimension all that information inside of STRATUS. So we can grab all those dimensions and that's what we'll send directly to a TigerStop. You'll see up top where it says stock length we can handle whatever type of stock length you need to put in the system. Because that's going to change your nesting and how we're going to nest the package as well.

Tools in TigerStop. So we allow you to put in all kinds of different tools and all kinds of different settings with that tool. So we're in booth 515, but let's go a little step further here and give you a little peek at a video here that we have. One second.

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- TigerStop is the global manufacturer of stops and pusher systems. What we're featuring here today is our TigerRack system. This pushes up to 800 pounds on roller tables. We have flat tables on this machine, but there are optional rollers. TigerStop also makes heavier units or lighter weight units depending on your needs. So we are able to enter a cut list into the TigerStop via our TigerTouch software that once that cut list is entered, then we are able to run the saw in a fully automatic mode.

TigerStop, in general, does not care what type of machine you have. TigerStops can be set up on any type of machine, whether it be a cold saw, it could be any brand of chop saw. It could be on a punch press, it could be on a band saw. TigerStop just simply wants to know where's the saw blade. That's called calibration-- where's the saw blade at. Once it knows where the saw blade's at, it's able to make any saw basically a single axis CNC machine. Any saw that has an automatic stroke-- like the [INAUDIBLE] cold saw, it could be any type of band saw-- if you're able to push a button on the saw, have the saw cycle without any interference, TigerStop would be able to make that saw into a fully automatic saw. system.

So when we're-- we're here today, obviously, and we're talking a lot about TigerStop and some of your workflows. So you're-- what tools are you using currently as far as to do all you're drawing?

- We use AutoCAD fabrication for our drawings currently. And we use S product for all of our estimating and we're able to take that S model and turn it into fabrication. And we're able to begin a job with a BIM model, and we're a couple weeks ahead of other contractors by using that S software.

- When I look at your fab shop here and I look at all the different tools you have-- you have a Watts cutter and now you've got a TigerStop-- you're batching up that information out of the model, obviously, and then you're sending it down to these devices. So that's showing up over here at the TigerStop, correct?

- Yes. We-- we're able to auto download from our software for both our Watts plasma cutter for anything we do that's 2 and 1/2 inch and above. And now we're able to auto download to the TigerStop for any of our pipe that's 2-inch and below-- unistrut, all thread rod, tube steel, pretty much any steel product that's 2-inch or smaller.

- So when you look at a TigerStop, one of the things that I think a lot of contractors don't understand is just how much cutting a contractor does daily-- from unistrut, to all thread rod, to all your copper, your steel pipe-- obviously, because you're on the heating side, you're big steel shop-- and as I look at this stack of unistrut and all thread rod that came from Porter, it's all teed up to be able to go right into the TigerStop.

- Last year we did in excess of 20,000 cuts. So-- when you look at all thread rod pipe, hangers, channel. It's a lot of cuts, it's a lot of tape measure pulls that don't have to be done. And that was our biggest source of fab error was a simple tape.

- Oh, the tape measure kills you. I mean, when you start to look at my background-- I'm trying to kill the tape measure off. I was acquired by Autodesk as far as some IP that ran robotic total stations and we really came out with model-based layout. And now we're looking and say, oh, my goodness, this same thing works as far as here in the shop. Every time you pull that tape measure there's a huge cost associated with that, not only in the time it takes to do it, but then as far as the marking. And when you look at how you're labeling all your pipe your branding, I mean, the guy's hardly need a model or anything to install from. You're telling the story directly on the piece pipe.

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TODD LIEBBE: So, Mike, can you chat a little bit about the automation of the [INAUDIBLE] for a second please?

MIKE ARNOTT: What you saw there was a semi-automatic saw, so that saw had a push button-- actually I think it had a foot actuator that you step on a panel and the saw cycles. What we're able to do and what you saw there is we took that and the TigerStop was able to take control of the saw cycle to where once the operator hit go, the TigerStop would push the material cycle to saw, push the material cycle to saw. So the operator is literally able to stand there collect parts, put the labels on there, stack the parts, sort them while the saw is doing all the work. And for a cold saw application that's great because it's a very slow cut, as you saw, cutting through steel. I think they were cutting two or three parts at a time there.

It's a 10 to 15-second cycle time. So that's a lot of time to stand there and wait. If you can get the saw and the TigerStop do that while you're doing something else, that's just even a bigger labor savings.

They mentioned several times pulling a tape measure out. There's five reasons why people buy TigerStops and we call it the five finger discount. One is zero setup time. Two is 100% accuracy, no rework. Increased productivity, increased yield. And an extremely fast payback time.

But that first one that I mentioned, the zero setup time-- pulling that tape measure out-- he said he made 20,000 cuts a year. If he's pulling the tape measure out every single cut, take that 20,000 times times the 10 seconds that it takes-- you think that that's just a silly number-- oh, it's only 10 seconds to pull a tape measure out and mark it. But take that times 20,000, take that times the $100 an hour shop labor that that guy is costing you, and that's where you get the last one-- the extremely fast payback time. Generally, we can pay for a TigerStop just in that pulling a tape measure alone, not even worried about the yield. Once we start factoring in the yield, it's just even more incredible the amount of fast payback time that these have.

TODD LIEBBE: So what we have up on the screen now-- this is STRATUS, the web-based application that enables you to take that Revit model and AutoCAD model, publish it to the cloud, and be able to view it in Forge and BIM 360 Docs. When you look at this model-- it's an equipment room, but this could as well be all your form work, could be all your [INAUDIBLE]-- I mean all your ceiling grids-- literally we could be viewing anything you want to be able to see in STRATUS up on the screen.

And on the right hand side, we have these various display modes. And what the display mode allows you to do is it say, hey, how did I break this down for my piping and sheet metal contractors? They do spooling constantly where they'll say, hey, I want this fitting and this pipe to go together. So you can visualize all of that.

To the right then, as far as on the screen, you'll see where it says packages and tracking. So as we move more and more toward a lean manufacturing workflow, people want to be able to see in their shop, fairly quickly-- they want to be at the come over here and click on tracking and see all their different statuses. And you're going to see a status up there called cut. We know, as we feed that TigerStop, what's gone through our cutting station. So when you have a big job and depend upon what you're doing, you can say visually, hey, where are we at? You can see every piece of material that's been cut in your fab shop and where that material is going to be stored in addition.

Then after you bring all that information together and as you publish that, we can go over here to our filters tool and we can say of all those materials, maybe I just want to go cut all my chilled water or my heating water. So I can select down and filter down by any of these-- that information and just see that run of pipe. And after I see that run of pipe, I literally go publish, goes over to my TigerStop interface where I hit send cut list, and that cut list is going to show up instantly inside of TigerStop.

So you have an operator at the saw and when he's at that saw, there is no drilling down to any CSV to open that up. There's no having to look anywhere. He's at his unit, he's seen his unit, and all those are is different Cut lists up top. We can even highlight what particular tab needs to be cut first. So we're giving them as much visual cue of what's going to be cut and then we'll show how that's going to be all nested out inside the TigerStop. So when-- simplest form, a TigerStop is a single axis CNC machine that can be driven in a multitude of different ways.

So questions here-- we like to leave quite a bit of time here for questions. So anybody have any specific questions about a TigerStop? Yes.

AUDIENCE: How easy is it to add an additional work package to a work package you're currently cutting? So if I add more material and more cuts and I want to optimize that even more.

TODD LIEBBE: So that is a good question. Those tabs up there. So if you see that 1 inch copper pipe tap and that other 1 inch copper pipe tab. If there was multiple copper pipe tabs, you can bring them together and get a better nest.

AUDIENCE: OK.

TODD LIEBBE: But now what you're going to be challenged with when you get a bigger nest sometimes is now you've mixed maybe jobs together. So you've always got to be thinking in this lean manufacturing workflow that maybe I'm OK to have maybe a little more waste, but I'm going to be keeping my packages more organized together.

But there may be times when you say, look, man. This is really high-dollar stainless steel. Let's see what I can do to do a better nest. and you can look through all your cut lists and combine them in together.

MIKE ARNOTT: Ultimately for nesting, we would like to nest a month's worth of work into one job and spend the month cutting that out to give me my best yield. But in reality, usually we can't do that. So we have to figure out the best way for ourselves of how many jobs we want to bring into a specific cut list to be able to manage my workflow.

AUDIENCE: And all that nesting is taking place in this Stratus web-based app?

TODD LIEBBE: It's all taking place in that Stratus web-based app, yep. So when we go query all your materials, we're going to cue it directly and send it to TigerStop. Type in the length of that material, and the nest occurs instantly.

So as I mentioned, we had a couple of general contractors come by. And 95% of the majority of the sales we've made have been predominant through the MEP trades. But if it's modeled and if it's cut listed in your model, I can extract that with Stratus to drive that type of machinery.

Any other questions here? We're going to let you a little early today here if we don't.

AUDIENCE: So on the video, I saw managing a stylus for the TigerTouch. Do you guys have any specific manufacturer that works well with that?

MIKE ARNOTT: The TigerTouch is simply a Surface Pro computer. Microsoft Surface Pro. The one that he was using came with it. Then Microsoft decided we're no longer going to send styluses with our Surface Pro. But yeah, you can use their stylus.

AUDIENCE: If you're using it in push format like you talked about--

[INAUDIBLE]

MIKE ARNOTT: So yeah. What happens is all of your material, generally, if it's 20-foot long, it can range from 20-foot and a 1/4 inch down to 19-foot and 3/4 inch. So you determine what is called your head cut and your tail cut.

So yes, we are always making the initial trim cut on the front edge and we're always going to take a little bit on the back edge. I usually set a back cut to be, like, a thousandth of an inch or something like that, because you're never going to get a nest to get that perfect.

But you also do have to set your saw curve, because when you're in a push mode, it has to push. If it's leading the 12-inch part, it has to push 12 plus the thickness of that saw blade. And that's very easy to set also.

One more thing I'll say about nesting is there's two types of nesting in the world. There's what's called pre-nesting to where it's going to tell you, here's 100 pieces of pipe. The first piece of pipe you're going to get this, this, and this out of. That's called pre-optimization.

The way TigerStop does it is we call it dynamic optimization. So you're able to, at the first of a job, go grab all the remnants, all the short pieces that were scraps from your last job, and initially put those in.

So you might have a 4-foot stick. You type in 4-foot, it's going to figure out the best way to use that 4-foot. Once you get rid of all that scrap, then you start grabbing your 20-foot sticks.

We say, use the worst first. So all those pieces of scrap that are laying around because the guy set it here because he doesn't have something to cut out of, the TigerStop uses each piece of material you present to the best of its ability.

And it's just really amazing how it cleans up a workstation. I walk up to a workstation and there's just crap all over the place from people setting stuff around. It cleans up that workstation, all that scrap goes away, and it never comes back.

TODD LIEBBE: We've seen quite a few companies here, when you look at where a TigerStop can live, a lot of times they put it directly in their fabrication. But we have now seen people taking these directly to the job site and are cutting at a job site.

MIKE ARNOTT: I have them on trailers. Yeah, we'll do a job site. Put them in a shipping container or something like that.

TODD LIEBBE: Send the materials directly to the job site. Do all the nesting and cutting directly at the job site. And somewhat, that's a lean workflow as well. Bypassing your fabrication of it, if it makes sense and it's the right type of job.

MIKE ARNOTT: Right behind you, Todd.

AUDIENCE: So the CSV file is being nested inside the TigerStop software?

MIKE ARNOTT: Yes.

TODD LIEBBE: Correct.

AUDIENCE: OK. And otherwise, the--

[INAUDIBLE]

TODD LIEBBE: We're nesting differently than TigerStop does because we're creating a package nest directly out of the model. Yes.

AUDIENCE: With your QR load and tracking encounter. So is this inevitably just going to kick out a QR code for the part, QR code for the [INAUDIBLE] on there so you can kind of track everything on there?

TODD LIEBBE: Yes.

AUDIENCE: OK. So-- sorry, just to kind of piggyback on that one real quick.

TODD LIEBBE: [LAUGHING] No, keep going.

AUDIENCE: All right. So as far as-- I see the product tracking and stuff is one thing. We've been trying to do a QR code to get that input in right now. So is that with this software, is that going to, with our foreman, [INAUDIBLE] have the ability to have it on his phone once they get that holding up?

TODD LIEBBE: All built.

AUDIENCE: Scan that.

TODD LIEBBE: All done. Yeah.

AUDIENCE: Awesome.

TODD LIEBBE: Yeah. I can pull up a QR code as far as directly in Stratus. I can scan that QR code and it'll ask me-- it'll give me all kinds of different things I can do. I can say, hey, it's installed. Or show me where this lives. Or show me the part, the piece, the spool. We allow you to drive to wherever you want with that QR code.

AUDIENCE: Are you able to manipulate as far as the tabs on those? As far as Command-Install?

TODD LIEBBE: Ron, can we do that?

[INAUDIBLE]

Yes. Yeah. We've got now, we have some of the largest MEP contractors in North America on Stratus. And it's now really gaining quite a bit of traction here. Some great testimonials. Who was at the keynote yesterday, the ConstructConnect keynote? Was anybody here yesterday at that event?

So Travis Voss, big mechanical contractor out of Chicago Mechanical, Inc. was up on center stage and talking through it. And that was our product up there, showing that whole methodology of how to spool, how to cut.

And that's what GTP is. I mean, we're a development company that has looked at where we're at as an industry. And we've got to learn to be able to cut, procure, build, track, buy, a heck of a lot faster than what we're currently doing. And Stratus is that tool that can help accomplish that.

AUDIENCE: If you're doing a dynamic nesting that you just mentioned, does your driver print it directly off of that--

TODD LIEBBE: Yes.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

TODD LIEBBE: Yes.

MIKE ARNOTT: Correct. Yes. Yes.

TODD LIEBBE: Yeah. And there's a huge payback there that a lot of people don't quite understand. But if you live the spooling process and what happens in that spooling process that when it gets down to the shop, I mean as far as with that QA, QC, as much as I wish everything you modeled was perfect at the point of publishing, it isn't.

That's why we QA, QC a lot of stuff. And then it's sometimes even open to that person tacking to that hey, I've got a preference of how I like to have my gap. And that just changed your coupling.

AUDIENCE: How are you [INAUDIBLE] inside of it as far as it knowing it's position? Does it have a magnetic strip reader, or is that--

MIKE ARNOTT: It's a rotary encoder on the DC motor. The TigerStop from position to position is accurate to 4 thousandths of an inch. And that comes out of the factory. We check that every inch, on the inch. Its entire length.