Episode #69: Visible Supply Chains: Traceability, BABA Compliance & AI with Origin8 Advisory
In this episode of U.S. Manufacturing Today (powered by Veryable), host Matt Horine talks with Ryan Arends and Brett Kronick, co-founders of Origin8 Advisory, about supply chain traceability, defensible documentation, and supply chain security as reshoring accelerates. Drawing on their US Army backgrounds, they connect military accountability practices to corporate needs to prove—not just claim—country of origin and compliance. They explain how Build America, Buy America (BABA) requirements are tightening as the grace period ends, waivers decline, and enforcement expands, creating risks such as funding delays, clawbacks, and potential False Claims Act exposure that can cascade from primes to subcontractors. Origin8’s AI-powered platform automates document extraction, matching across multi-tier BOMs and records, and compliance scoring (red/yellow/green), reducing fire-drill audits. They recommend baseline readiness assessments, clear ownership of evidence, and validating traceability continuously.
Links
- Ryan Arends on LinkedIn
- Brett Kronick on LinkedIn
- Origin8 Website
- Origin8 on LinkedIn
- Veryable Is Revitalizing U.S. Manufacturing
- Sign Up on the Veryable Platform
Timestamps
- 00:00 Podcast Introduction
- 01:19 Military Backgrounds
- 02:31 Accountability Mindset
- 05:16 Founding Origin8
- 08:30 Visible vs Defensible
- 12:56 BABA Rules Tighten
- 16:41 Cascading Audit Risk
- 21:23 Origin8 Platform Demo
- 25:50 Competitive Advantage
- 30:46 Getting Started Process
- 34:31 Closing Thanks
- 35:13 Podcast Outro
Episode Transcript
Matt Horine: [00:00:00] Welcome back to U.S. Manufacturing Today, the podcast powered by Veryable, where we talk with the leaders, innovators, and change makers shaping the future of American industry, along with providing regular updates on the state of manufacturing, the changing policy landscape, and more.
Today's episode addresses reshoring in one of the most strategic and tactical conversations we can have about supply chain today, traceability and supply chain security. This show, however, is a bit unique as both of my guests and myself on this call spent time in the US Army before we spent a day in supply chain, and I think that matters because the conversation we're about to have is really one about [00:01:00] instincts that can be applied in corporate America, and most importantly, to be able to prove things and not just claim it. My guests today are Ryan Arends and Brett Kronick, co-founders of Origin8 Advisory, a supply chain traceability firm built around an AI-powered platform. Ryan and Brett, welcome to US Manufacturing Today.
Brett: Thanks, Matt
Matt: We are excited to have you, and I think it's important to frame this conversation a little bit with your background before we jump into Origin8, but talking more about your origin stories and the unique applications and lessons, from the military that can be applied in corporate America today.
Ryan we'll start with you first. Where did you all serve, and how did y'all-- your paths cross?
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. So I was originally commissioned as an infantry officer stationed in Germany, ended up having a, a deployment under my belt there, and then ended up transitioning to a multifunctional logistician. Had a company command with a service detachment comm- company with this Special Forces [00:02:00] Group, then ended up becoming a brigade S-4 back in Germany, and that's where Brett and I met for my, what would end up being my third deployment
Brett: Yeah. Also in the Army for five years, commissioned through ROTC. Did a range of roles from a platoon leader to executive officer to to troop commander. And like Ryan mentioned, that's where we met in Germany. And then following Germany, we we both left the service and linked up stateside, which I know we'll talk about a little bit later.
So we both crossed paths in uniform and in the civilian life, and a- again today as part of Origin8. But, if we think about that origin story on the service side, I think one specific Army habit helped really develop what we are doing with Origin8, and that is something that I think is gonna resonate with all three of us, and that's the accountability of equipment.
So going back in time a little bit, if you can remember those, you know, change of command inventories, cyclic inventories, sensitive item inventories, the reports that go with it. All of it is running through-- And this is also gonna be a, I think a, a, a trip through time, the DA, Department of Army Form [00:03:00] 2062.
So I think for those that aren't familiar with the military, that's the receipt that we use to log, track, and trace all equipment across the entire Department of the Army. As leaders, you sign for it, and from that moment you ensure that you can produce it, account for it, take care of it on demand.
And then thinking about the inspection side of that we have pre-combat checks, pre-combat inspections, and nothing is ever leaving outside that door because somebody said it was ready. You're gonna make sure that it's ready. And so that just built this instinct I think in myself and Ryan, Ry- Matt, and you as well, that makes sure that you understand where something is and that it's ready to be used.
And that, that instinct is really what helped us build Origin8.
Matt: Yeah, a lot of things there taking me back a little ways. Ryan, I know our paths were very similar. We're both infantry guys and then ended up in the logistics world, which is not uncommon. Most of the Army is logistics. I think there's a pretty famous saying about that, and I don't know if [00:04:00] in a long time, at least a decade, I'd heard the word FLIPL financial accountability there
Brett: and not from 2062 as well
Matt: Yeah, no, that's one of those things for the audience's benefit, FLIPL is an accountability of government equipment investigation, and those are certainly very common, but a lot of paperwork involved with that, which I think we can apply that lesson as well. But Ryan the logistics path really stood out for both of us
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. And wow, I appreciate Brett in the 2062 as a brigade S4 logistics officer having to help all of those company commanders maintain the accountability of their of their property books. I appreciate that. Looking back on how we've, the traceability and the accountability we're talking about really goes back to Ranger School for me, and really that planning process that
goes into that, where from the beginning of the mission all the way to the very end is analyzed and we risk mitigate with contingency plans every step along the way, and that's what we've incorporated here
Matt: Yeah, r- [00:05:00] a-absolutely. I think the, the military planning process and there's, a lot of acronyms in that planning process, but it's something that is extremely thorough and pretty foundational career-wise. I know a lot of folks who came out of the military into the supply chain because there's just so much overlap.
And it brings so much rigor and discipline to really view that, which, brings me to the big question for this show and about Origin8 Advisory. And we can walk through some of your experiences at Chesapeake and Eden and other places for you as well, Brett. What kind of made the moment where you said, "This needs to be a very specific endeavor that we can build a company on"?
Ryan: Yeah, so I, like I said, started with working for Chesapeake Energy and really managing two warehouses to go into Eaton and working in a high volume manufacturing environment, seeing what right looks like, and then going to the opposite side of the spectrum with a couple startups both with setting up distribution facilities all over the country and really starting from scratch. And then ultimately my last [00:06:00] last iteration before Gen8 was working as a consultant for supply chain, really focused on supply chain for companies that are, have a rest- or have rest- I guess, funds for government contracts or applying for government funding, and really kinda seeing that gap when it comes to traceability and the documentation required for those items.
And that's really kinda how Brett and I, from his side, we started talking, we started seeing that this isn't just me looking through a narrow lens. We're seeing this across multiple industries
Brett: Yeah and then from, my perspective just over the last 20 years, living in this world, and I think it's a bit of just kind of personality and the world that I've lived and worked in is just process improvement and operational excellence. So applicable to the military in the energy world, which I worked, in the consulting world, and they just always pointed towards operations and process improvement.
I think if we take some of that instinct that was developed with us early in our, professional careers as part of the, the military and then expanding on that in the [00:07:00] civilian life, it just was always leading to this world of process improvement and operational excellence.
And I think what we've all seen over and over again is we see the same problem over and over again, and it's just s- a, a organization believes something is happening, and what is actually happening is different or can be different. And I think what we're, what we've built with Originate and what we're trying to do is really bridge that gap, obviously through the lens of, supply chain and supply chain traceability, but help organizations understand what they're actually doing and if that is different from w- what they think they're, what they think they're doing.
When we think about the world of supply chain the, the problem isn't knowledge, it's volume. If we think, from a, going to a a product, a bill of material, there could be so many different parts and components that are part of it, and it's not the knowledge of that, it's being able to understand the volume of all those pieces and understanding, looking at it through the lens that [00:08:00] we look at it through, where are these things coming from?
What is the country of origin, and where are your risks?
Matt: Right? That is a major topic right now because of, we'll get into it here a little bit on the show, but the Buy America Act and some of those, those
things that people don't understand their components, especially in the world of, and I think, we almost made a joke about this when we met, the world of contract manufacturing when you outsource your supply chain visibility to a third party, it becomes quite complex.
I wanna frame some of that issue now. I saw a recent post, I think it was, on LinkedIn or somewhere, but you put something down that, that really stood out to me in terms of differentiating this, and I wanna put it in front of our audience. And Ryan, you'd said, "Supply chains can be visible without being defensible."
It's a pretty sharp distinction but I think that frames the problem quite well. W- Would love to address that.
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I'll say, like I, I'm originally from Missouri, the Show Me State, so this [00:09:00] works pretty well with you've gotta, you've gotta show me the, the supporting documentation. A team can see their sup- their inventory, their product on the shelf, but can they actually provide documentation showing proof of origin?
Can they provide those documents that are defensible when looking at an audit? And that's where a lot of companies are struggling right now, right? They are receiving their inventory in, they're getting it, they're able to move their product, but that heavy lift of being able to p- have d- defensible documentation in a readily available location is just, it's it's difficult to do especially with everybody's just the amount of workload on individuals, and this being multi departments, and, just trying to put all of that together.
It's a challenge
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. I think the, the show me state is a great one, and it-- I'm gonna weave in some Army stories here and there throughout the show. But in the supply chain world, I will have an [00:10:00] unnamed, former supply sergeant that I used to work with, and he defined this, and I've thought about it throughout my career, that he liked to refer to as the gray area, and how, supply teams in the military and, since I've seen that in corporate America, they operate quite well in the gray area.
But when it comes to commercial endeavors and, selling projects, t- for-- that have requirements for Buy America to being responsive to tariffs, where things are coming from, it helps people be a little bit more tactical. But it sounds like, and, this is for you, Brett, or for you, Ryan, it sounds like this lifts that out of the gray area to put it, like an overarching term.
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. You've gotta have, I just say for say the, the Build America, Buy America Act that was y- it came about 2021, and it really was a grace period between, then and now allowing folks to use I guess a higher percentage of waiver approvals allowing
Matt: so it lifts it out of the gray area is what it sounds like.
Ryan: [00:11:00] Yeah, absolutely. Let's just take the, the Build America, Buy America Act, for example. It it was passed in 2021, and there's been a grace period really from from then until now with supplier attestations being ac- being accepted or the waiver approval percentages being up and those are changing now.
The grace period is coming to an end. Less approvals on the waiver side, slower in just getting them approved all to begin with, and then the attestations are simply... they're not defensible at this point. You have to find have clear documentation that shows where the docu- where the materials origin-
Brett: And Matt, I think to that point it's perfect timing with the world that we live in now and the processing power that is at the, the tip of everybody's fingertips now with AI and just other advances in technology to be able to, I think things that used to be gray can now be a bit more black and white, 'cause you can actually, if you think about that example where, you have all these different [00:12:00] product components to a singular product and it would take a human, hours if not days to process something, we can now with technology do something in a matter of seconds or minutes that would've taken hours or days, and be able to remove that gray and help show organizations where they sit, from the good but also the, the, the bad.
And if we think about some of our, kinda, military experience and always improving the foxhole and trying to get bet- b- just because something is red doesn't mean that it is necessarily bad. It means an area of improvement for you to target and actually, improve an organization and be able to improve your foxhole, and you only know that if you can understand where you sit today
Matt: Yeah, though getting that just another maybe mid-2000s reference, back Don Rumsfeld, the known knowns, known unknowns type framework. There's... That turned out to be more real than, at the time everybody kinda gave him a hard time about that. I feel like that's a really nice framing of a lot of problems, right?
It stood the test of time. I th- I think this is a good segue into the [00:13:00] Build America, Buy America specifics. Because there's some general familiarity with it, right? And I think most people that I encounter they may see it on the other end as part of an, an RFQ or it has to be, the Buy America Act adherent and, compliant with those types of things.
But compliance is a really big word for that. First and foremost, what are some of the specifics around it? What used to be acceptable as proof that maybe no longer flies? It sounds like it's, getting a little bit tighter there. And are you seeing it mostly acutely in a specific sector?
We talk a lot about reindustrialization on this show. Where and how is this showing up? Because it's, I think, really at the heart of the matter.
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. So I think a lot of people just hear the name, the Build America, Buy America Act, and they assume this is from the current Trump administration. And like I said before, this happened in 2021. This was created right after the pandemic. The bill was passed, and it really has a lot of bipartisan support, and it's continued to have that here, going five years later. [00:14:00] I think one of the things we're seeing, like I talked about before with the grace period kinda coming to an end there, and you're actually seeing here recently, it's in the Senate right now, is the Build America, Buy America Compliance Act. It's also bipartisan support, but it's gonna hold agencies accountable for not adhering to the Babel rules and regulations.
So you're seeing this continued focus on making sure that the regulation's being up- is being followed and applied. The grace period, like I said, is ending, so you're having the waivers are just simply not happening right now. The, the expectation is that suppli- or that companies are finding other ways to source their material that meets those requirements without having to seek the waiver process.
As far as for infrastructure I think we're seeing a lot... Or I'm sorry. As far as which sectors we're seeing this in, really HUD and infrastructure is really playing a heavy role right now in it
Brett: Yeah. I think the other piece to [00:15:00] add too is the reason you're seeing, you know, some of this manifest through regulation, at least from, our collective perspective is, as a product of pandemics and tariffs and geopolitical events, supply chain risk has become operational risk.
And I think helping, especially for, organizations that are, defense or transportation or, other tangential industries that are in relation to those, it's important that they have secure and knowledgeable supply chains. And so you've seen, the Build America, Buy America Act and a whole bunch of other associated legislation to help ensure that companies understand where their supply chain risk is and how that does impact overall operations.
Matt: Yeah, I think that the, and Ryan, to your point the difference now seems like there's a little bit more accountability. Like there, there's actual-- there could be consequence from, adherence to this. What are the because I think, Brent, to your point, it is an operational question.
This is, how [00:16:00] companies do business, and it can have really big consequences. But Ryan, is this like a disqualification, some type of clawback on a contract? What are companies facing?
Ryan: Yeah, that's exactly it. That, number one's funding delays right? So if you're, even if you're trying to get a waiver and those waiver delays are taking so long, there's a chance for a clawback for, like you said, the delays in overall funding. And then probably on the extreme side is falling under the False Claims Act, and that's for anyone who is misrepresenting, purposely misrepresenting the country of origin.
So there's a range there that can really hamper a- and hurt a a company and their progress.
Matt: Yeah, that's-- it's the severe commercial consequences for this, and I think we're gonna talk about this as kind of a cascading problem, or at least that's, how we framed it when we first met. It's something that's very real world. And, to, to your point, one thing that jumped out from that-- our conversation is that the obligation doesn't necessarily stop with a [00:17:00] prime contractor.
It can flow all the way down now. Every sub is impacted. I've been a manufacturer where we've been part of a larger bid. Your piece is correct. You don't know about the guy above you, and the guy above you may be more adherent than the subs. So let's talk through that a little bit 'cause it's-- that's a real consequence for small manufacturers.
Ryan: Absolutely. And you're s- and you're... Honestly, you're seeing that that, I almost wanna call it chaos there, w- both with the prime and the sub but really the sub is it may not be completely their fault, just simply not having those clear expectations set from the prime on what is expected from them as well.
But you absolutely can can have all that cascading effect due to the subs of not having that documentation readily available or it having to search and to have them create new documentation that really meets the expectations that the prime's needing in order to go through a- an audit. That's where you s- really see a [00:18:00] fire right before the, before an- the audit process where people realizing that the, the documentation isn't accurate. It's missing documentation. It's not stored where it was originally thought, and now the entire organization is spun up trying to get something taken care of, and they're not managing their day-to-day duties at that point
Brett: And, all from the perspective of something that in that cr- in that sense, it's a fire drill, but for something that really did not need to be a fire drill at all. If you were organized and understood where things were from the beginning, it would be a simple click of the button exercise
Matt: That's the type of visibility that people are expecting now. So it's something that's catching up to organizations and their operational, their op tempo, like it's something that used to pass and you could just do it. And now there's a little bit more accountability to your earlier point. I guess a, a really good, as, as some type of advice for our audience what's the baseline readiness question every manufacturer should be able to answer right now? Do you know your country of origin [00:19:00] down the chain? Is there something more specific that should be highlighted?
Brett: I think it's probably two very distinct things. Do you know the country of origin? Can you trace that? And then paired with that, can you prove it? And those two questions can be in a lot of instances, the first question can be yes, and in, in some of those cases, the, the second question is no, or can you prove it easily without that, fire drill exercise of having to contact suppliers and other suppliers and, people across the organization to pull this packet together to then prove it
Matt: Yeah that's something that it's all like back to the beginning of the show here for us. It's you prove it, show me. If you have an example top of mind, have you seen a company, or in your personal experience, is there something that stands out as like a, like the moment where you're like, this is...
I never want to have this happen again," or a customer brought it to you? Is there a really good example of that?
Ryan: Yeah. W- we had a, a, a client that [00:20:00] presented a, a, a document. It was an invoice showing that the, the item they purchased was a B- BABA compliant piece of equipment. And then as you look through the, the, the entire document, you saw different country of origins that were listed on it. And I think that's when you're... A- and neither one of them saying the, they're from the US. And at that point, if that was your document that you're holding onto expecting to, to pass an audit guess what? You're, you j- That, that's just not gonna work. So it's that level of detail that really or not even really the detail, but the how it conflicted that kind of opened up our eyes like, yeah, this is this is a problem that we're seeing, and that across everyone.
It's not just w- one standard example, I should say
Matt: Yeah that's a real kind of like a I'm Spartacus moment having two, two countries of origin there when you're trying to be BABA compliant. Which is crazy. I think I told you all when we first met that, I had worked with a contract manufacturer, and we could get to the point where we were [00:21:00] producing, 500 units of something, and they had subbed out, stainless steel of some type to multiple different vendors because they had buy packages, and it was more about their quantity buy versus the country of origin.
And all of a sudden, we had a mixed lot, or we had something that was going to a, a major American city that has to be compliant with BABA, and it's pretty much. So you see this in the real world. It's much more common than anybody thinks. I, I wanna get really into the platform and what you all are doing now and talk about Originate and how this works le- and how you solve it.
So you've described the platform as, automating extraction, matching, compliance scoring. What does that mean in practice, and what used to take weeks that now takes days? What does that compression really look like?
Brett: Yeah, so I think we've talked about a couple things, just in terms of how people have attested to this before. At its worst, it's a, a, a pencil whipping exercise where you feel comfortable or confident in this, but you don't actually know. Or it becomes this conference room exercise that I think we've all, [00:22:00] mentioned and have had to live in a variety of ways as part of our past experience where, everybody is coming into the conference room, quality, purchasing, engineering reviewing a bill of materials, emailing suppliers, trying to get everything, and it is that, fire drill exercise.
And that takes days, sometimes weeks. You're pulling everything together and then trying to, package it into something that can truly attest to the compliance. What we've done and I think it's probably a, a, a three-step process that's, a, a part of proving BABA. It's extracting the information, it's matching it across what's been extracted, and then it's scoring.
It's providing that, red, yellow, green stoplight type scorecard to understand where your supply chain sits in relation to BABA, and it can be other regulations as well. But I think, extraction can be easy. It's, you know- Getting the information that you need using some being able to do that either manually or electronically to get that information.[00:23:00]
Matching is the hard part. And, I'm sure Ryan, you can a-attest to this a bit. You can get so many layers deep trying to follow the bouncing ball from part to subpart to other sub-subpart across all these different supply chain documents to ultimately land at where that part came from a manufacturer in that country of origin or even more important to Baba, where it was where it was manufactured and then where it was assembled.
And that's the part that becomes very difficult, being able to match all that in relation to the product and the bill of material. And honestly, that-that's what Originate can do. So we've built a tech platform to be able to extract all the information, and then across multiple documents, be able to match all these numbers.
A, a, a supplier may use a different number than you are tracking as the distributor or assembly value. We're going to track all of that down via travelers and any [00:24:00] other related documents to understand truly what is the origin of that document, and be able to substantially show through that ex- through that matching where that piece was coming from.
And then ultimately package all of that into that green, yellow, red stoplight scorecard to be able to produce that extraction matching value.
Matt: Yeah, that's it's something that, that compression just sounds you took me back there with the everybody piled in the conference room moment trying to figure out all those things. Ryan, I want, if you wanted to add anything on the matching for sure.
Ryan: Yeah, I think one of the, the, the interesting parts of this of this platform that I really appreciate, and I think most that, that have been on the operations side in, in manufacturing, is that it r- it simply is a, an individual uploading these documents, and it being able to trace multiple documents to find that end state.
And it, like Brett said, it could be from a traveler to a material issue slip [00:25:00] to a material cert and it's able to trace that entire process from the BOM all the way to that material cert without the, the client having to talk us through or having to write a narrative out on where to follow point one to two to three to four.
The system does it itself. So it makes this s- I wouldn't say it's a it is easier than it's ever been to be able to do something like this
Matt: I think that's the right framing, especially around a tech stack, because people-- there's two default settings, right? They may not get it, or they might think that it solves all their problems up to and including, the accountability piece. That's the, the trick with AI right now for sure, is that people think it's going to solve the problem.
It's actually just enhancing productivity, doing things that would've taken out, hours into minutes. And so I think that's a really great way to frame the process. Do you think, and speaking for manufacturers who are listening today, does a tech stack built for this, do you think it widens the gap between companies that invest in this type of [00:26:00] methodology now and those that wait?
Do you think that the, those compliance and everything is getting more dynamic, or do you think it's something that if you address it head on which I believe is, the desired outcome for folks working with you, is that they're getting some kind of competitive advantage here?
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. The, now that whole process of them being able to provide, let's just, again, always going to the example of BABA, the ability to apply for or to compete in contracts to where they're not having to, fingers crossed on a waiver process, fingers crossed, that they think that they can pass an audit without really knowing.
This is letting them being proactive, know exactly where their risks are, how they can mitigate those risks and and, a- and meet any of those requirements head on s- without potential delays, clawbacks, et cetera. So you're absolutely getting a- an advantage by knowing by, I guess by having th- this process implemented and being proactive on knowing where all of your documentation's [00:27:00] located
Brett: And Ryan, I think the other thing that pairs with that, one, that's the regulatory side. Tying it back to that supply chain risk is operational risk. Understanding better your supply chain, where things are coming from, how it works, where the inputs are, where your suppliers are, if that isn't, 100% knowledgeable to an organization today is so powerful to be able to have that process, understand it, and then, like we've talked about, where are those areas of improvement to focus on to help, shore up any of that supply chain risk to ultimately help improve your operational risk?
Ryan: Yeah, 'cause we didn't even talk about, the, we just came out of a pandemic and all the supply chain disruptions that happened there. A lot of those were unknown for individuals as far as that third and fourth order effects because of that. Having that visibility ahead of time is, would, I'm I'm sure it'd be worth its weight in gold if pe- folks would've known about that, prior to the pandemic
Matt: Yeah, I think we all learned a pretty tough lesson coming out of there. For a lot of folks, with military background, it wasn't-- [00:28:00] it was a tough lesson, but maybe not a surprising one. I think because if you're exposed to that kind of volatility, and we live in an era of volatility now, I think that the, a big macro trend of this all is that the era of globalization as we knew it from, the '90s to the early 2010s or 2015 is over.
It's not necessarily, free trade is the blanket. There's a huge focus on building up American manufacturing, reindustrialization, and reshoring that is framed in national sovereignty. This is a question about, our ability to make things, build things, and do it in a way that benefits the American worker and the American consumer. And ultimately, maybe when we talk in the, the, the sectors that we have been today the American government that builds, our defense sector those are the big questions. I-- What is-- if-- This is a, a question that I ask all of our guests. If you're a, a manufacturer or someone today that is sitting back and these kind of, these kinds of questions are [00:29:00] lurking and you're thinking about it what's the one action you recommend they would take in the next thirty days a-as part of, what your company's process is or how you would get started?
Brett: Go ahead, Ryan
Ryan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think the one is to know your BOM all the way down to, your bill of materials down to the sub tier, who-- assign who has clear ownership of the evidence and and to consistently look to validate it. What, what may have been a source of truth, like we said, a couple months ago may not be true now.
And your example of multiple lots, different suppliers can can change what you previously thought your, your-- how you were mapped out previously, I guess is-
Brett: And I think tangibly the way to do that is understand where you sit today. So go through that exercise and perform that baseline readiness assessment. Know where you sit, so like it isn't any mystery. Like we- we've talked about, you take that gray out and know where those areas are that are working really well in your organization [00:30:00] from a supply chain perspective and where those opportunities are.
And the only way you can do that, unless you have, you are leveraging an ERP system 100%, which we know is not the case for a lot of companies all the different systems have their pros and cons. Like unless that's the case, like it would be very beneficial to just go through that initial baseline readiness assess- assessment, and if we think through supply chain risk, understand where your traceability is, where your regulatory aspects are, the things that apply, the areas that you may be a bit weak in, and then, where those proce- process and system areas can be improved to help tackle all of that.
And I think Ryan and I would both say, like you always would begin that with some sort of baseline assessment.
Matt: Really good advice. And I think if, we talk about readiness assessment and baseline readiness assessments, but if you're someone listening right now, there's probably a there's two camps, and I'm gonna just take a guess at this. You guys, knock me down if I'm wrong. There's [00:31:00] folks that are proactively probably reaching out to you or looking for a solution like this, and then there are folks that are probably caught on their heels.
Like they, they may have come up against something, they may have suffered one of those consequences altogether. What would you say, the primary reason is to reach out for you? And if our audience wanted to get in touch with you, how, what would be the beginning process and what would it look like?
Brett: Yeah. Obviously we're happy to help in, in either of those two scenarios. Obviously, from the backgrounds that we have, we love the proactive but understand that sometimes you're responding to to, to something negative that might have happened and we're ob- obviously willing to help in both scenarios.
Our website and LinkedIn are probably the best places to start, so that's origin8advisory.com or just Origin8 Advisory on LinkedIn.
And we begin the process with just listening and understanding, trying to understand, maybe through, those two different categories of approach, like what is the approach that is being taken? What does the supply chain system look like? How complex is it? [00:32:00] S- I think Ryan and I would both say, s- start small and, pilot something.
It can begin as easy as piloting a, singular good representative product line or bill of material within an organization to give a good representation from a sample standpoint of where an organization sits. Start there. We have a very simple and easy intake process to just go through some survey-based analysis to understand where that organization sits.
Then we're gonna collect the information, and we have a really easy portal and process to do that, where a client can go upload the bill of materials, upload the supporting documents, answer just a couple questions about where that information was stored and how difficult that was to find, and obviously that helps empower for an organization what that looks like holistically, from a storage standpoint of supply chain documents, and then we do the rest of the heavy lifting.
And to no surprise, we've leveraged technology and artificial intelligence to help do some of that extraction traceability. But something that [00:33:00] we always try to do and always will do, and I think it's a very important piece, is keep that human in the loop to make sure that it's not just, fire and forget to the, the AI ethers and allow it to do whatever it's going to do.
No. We always are going to review, verify and importantly validate those edge cases to make sure that the information that is being analyzed and reviewed is correct. And there's always gonna be edge cases at, at, at all companies, so we always keep a human in the loop for reviewing that piece.
Ultimately, if we think about that, survey, uploading some documents, we do all the heavy lifting after that. We produce that base-- a version of a baseline readiness scorecard in relation to traceability and regulatory applicability. So we separate those two. We want to understand, how things are tracing in your organization, and then also what are those different regulations in relation to the, the data that we're extracting and its applicability and meeting those different thresholds that a company may need to meet for the contracts that they're [00:34:00] fulfilling
Matt: Right on. I think you hit on a, a ton of key points there, and we can have a whole nother breakout session on human in the loop. That's something that is probably a big concern to folks who are trying to address this problem right now is I'm not just kinda handing this over and trusting the system.
It's, the expert knowledge that both of you have
Ryan: That, that old saying of trust but verify,
That you, from the military, it comes into play here. So we definitely a- adhere to that with the results that we were, that we get from the platform
Matt: Absolutely. Yeah, we've had a lot of great phrases that came back up on the show. And I think that, one, thank you both for your service, and obviously this is one of the benefits of service because you're taking those military lessons learned and applying it in a world that impacts all of us and is critically important right now in the manufacturing space.
So thank you very much for joining us today. We'll be sure to link everything in the comments if we have customer- or if we have folks who are listening who wanna reach out to you and get started and get a ta- a handle on this kind [00:35:00] of accountability and being able to use this system to propel themselves forward in this new world we're living in.
Brett: Thanks, Matt. We were happy to be here to share our story with you and and your audience
Matt: All right.
Ryan: Yeah. Thank you very much.
Matt Horine: To stay ahead of the curve and to help plan your strategy, please check out our website at www.veryableops.com and under the resources section titled Trump 2.0, where you can see the framework around upcoming policies from the administration and how they will impact you as a manufacturer.
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