In this episode, we sit down with Mishaal Murawala of MacroFab to discuss the innovative and dynamic field of electronics manufacturing, highlighting the challenges, solutions, and impact on the industry. We delve into MacroFab's role as an electronics manufacturing platform, addressing the needs of engineers and companies in the industry. The discussion emphasizes the transformation and growth in electronics manufacturing, the impact of Industry 4.0, and the unique value proposition of MacroFab in streamlining the manufacturing process.

00:00 The Dynamic Field of Electronics Manufacturing
03:13 MacroFab: Revolutionizing the Manufacturing Process
42:46 Addressing Customer Pain Points and Streamlining Processes

• The electronics manufacturing industry is experiencing significant transformation and growth, driven by innovations in technology and automation.
• MacroFab serves as an electronics manufacturing platform, streamlining the process for engineers and companies, addressing customer pain points, and providing end-to-end solutions.
• The impact of industry 4.0, digital transformation, and automation on the manufacturing industry is a key focus, with MacroFab at the forefront of enabling engineers to adapt to modern processes.
• The challenges and complexities of manufacturing, including supply chain issues, component availability, and color customization, are highlighted, emphasizing the need for innovative solutions and streamlined processes.
• MacroFab's unique value proposition lies in its ability to simplify and enhance the manufacturing experience, addressing customer frustrations and providing a comprehensive solution for engineering and procurement needs.

episode transcript

Andrya (00:01.065)
Hello, I am Andrea Allen, the creator of Vox Verba and the Vox Verba manufacturing podcast. Today I am thrilled to be here with Michelle Mirawala of Macro Fab, a company that is at the forefront of electronics manufacturing with clients like Tesla, Google, and 3M. Michelle, thank you for being with us today.

Mishaal Murawala (00:23.054)
Of course, thanks for having me.

Andrya (00:24.457)
Yeah, I'm so excited to share today about the innovative and dynamic field of electronics manufacturing. It's a crucial sector that right now is experiencing major transformation and growth, especially here in the States. So thank you for joining us. Let's start with a snapshot of who you guys are. Could you give me a brief overview of who you are and what MacroFab does?

Mishaal Murawala (00:53.358)
Sure. So my name is Mishal. I'm the VP of marketing at MacroFab. Been with the company for close to three years now. My background always has been working with mid -size to larger organizations. Before this, I was working for a SaaS company. Before that, I was also in the electronics space for a long time, or for Keatly instruments, followed by Tektronix.

So I have a lot of background in electronics, electronics manufacturing. So Mac is a really good fit and having a great fun time over here, obviously with the day -to -day challenges that we have. Not just with the company, but the industry at large. Things move and are moving faster than most people realize. And sometimes there is a...

penalty you pay as an organization that's a leading edge, you know, there was a lot of time that goes into educating your audiences on life can be better. Don't get used to a sucky life. So that's MacroFab, right? MacroFab is an electronics manufacturing platform. We are not a software company. Every time we introduce ourselves as an electronic manufacturing platform, a lot of people think of us as a...

ERP system or whatever, it is not. It is a platform where engineers can come in, basically upload PCB design files in different file formats, upload their bomb, the below material. And it's a self -serve platform. They can go through the entire process of uploading their documents and ultimately getting a quote for their PCB assembly.

It's a quick process if you have your files in order, you instantly get a code for your prototype or even small scale production from the platform itself without talking to anyone. But then the engineers or the companies can actually work with our expanded sales team to work on the production side. And we do end -to -end electronics manufacturing. So.

Mishaal Murawala (03:13.262)
starting from PCB assembly all the way up to box build to testing to logistics, you name it. So it's a all in one platform and the company.

Andrya (03:23.593)
Okay, all right, thank you so much for explaining that. That's fascinating. So a lot of what you do enables the engineering process for manufacturers.

Mishaal Murawala (03:35.534)
That's correct. It's.

you know, the, the place where things have shifted over a period of time, you know, macrofab is one of those companies that actually, is helping people realize the buzzwords, right? you know, the, the buzzwords of industry 4 .0 cloud manufacturing, on demand manufacturing. you know, engineers like hate those terms.

What does that even mean? What does 4 .0, like, you know, a guy sitting at his bench, like what does industry 4 .0 mean to me? Right? Like they go in, they do their research and all they're going to find is a paper from Deloitte, Ian Vai and how, you know, 5G is changing the world and the, and the, the engineer at the desk is like, I've, right. And they, they glance over it and they move on. Like they cannot relate to what any of that, digital thread is another term. It was like, yeah, whatever.

Macro Fab is one of those companies that actually makes that happen. When we talk about digital threat, and we can get into a little bit detail later on, but we, Macro Fab is one of those companies that actually make these buzzwords mean something to an engineer. And our platform is at the forefront of that. And we enable the engineers to really move into 2024.

from all the processes that they have today, which are still stuck in 70s and 80s. So it's an interesting journey that we are on.

Andrya (05:19.209)
How fascinating. Thank you for confirming that so I can be sure where you guys fit into the marketplace. And really interested about as we go further into today's conversation about what we'll discover and what will be revealed because as you know, this is a podcast about manufacturing. So we go through.

many different leaders, sometimes CEOs are on the show, sometimes COOs, sometimes CMO, some different levels, but all of them talk about either industry 4 .0, automation, digital transformation. And so I think this topic is something that these listeners are constantly hearing and want to know more about, well, what do I do with this word and how do I make it happen in my country?

be a champion for change today. So I'm curious.

Compared to other people or companies that may offer similar solutions, what makes you stand out?

Mishaal Murawala (06:27.918)
You know, there are many levels to this conversation. There are different kinds of companies that are, you know, when they talk about digital transformation, there are companies that, you know, help people tailor together an end -to -end manufacturing solution that's all digital, right? Implement ERP systems that is one small portion of it, but digitizing the supply chain, right?

As I said, the entire manufacturing industry is still stuck in. It's one of the only industries that's always lagging, right? No one in a manufacturing company really has a mandate, right? There is never a team in a manufacturing company that goes in and be like, you know what, we're going to transform how we work. Like you can never walk into a team of supply chain professionals and be like, you know what?

Enough of the spreadsheets and Google Drive and Dropbox and stuff. All this stuff, we're going to move you into a software and the entire team is like, you know what? This has been pending for a long time. Let's do this. No one is excited about that, right? Because you can modernize your portion of the equation, but the other vendors you're working with, they are still stuck in.

in old school ways, right? So just transforming how you do your day to day doesn't mean the other vendors are going to be able to support it. So you still continue to work in this broken system. So we are not in that industry, right? What we do is we have found this piece of the puzzle that we know that the engine is.

the torture that they go through. So I'll give you a practical example and enough of abstract talk, right? So I used to work for Tectonics. You know, we had obviously remote teams, we had teams in Europe, we had product teams everywhere. And then we had manufacturing happening in China as well. There was some portion of manufacturing that's still happening in the US. So these engineers will come up with the design and I would see them, right, every day after four o 'clock in the evening, they are sitting on a call with their China counterparts.

Mishaal Murawala (08:43.406)
Right. And having that conversation, explaining the design, explaining the, giving out the manufacturing details, they go back and forth or weeks on component availability. and you know, they exchanging emails, if they can't find component, it is always on the engineer to figure out. Either they have to redesign or find alternative parts, right? Just a simple process of prototype takes weeks.

to go from end to end, right? So the design is one thing, but now the engineer is on the hook to also make sure that the design they have made is manufacturable. The components of how complex is the manufacturing based on the design and so on and so forth. And I've seen that firsthand, like the engineers are stuck every day in the evening talking to people and to just get a quote to get the process started. We have completely changed that process, right?

Today, the engineer, right, no matter what time zone you're in, right, it's an online platform. You go in, you have your file, you have your bomb, you upload your design. We kind of walk you through the entire process of making sure how you think your parts are going to be placed, it's going to be placed. You know, there are a bunch of steps that the engineers have to go through and make sure this is what they think is going to be the final product. They receive a quote right away.

Right? And they haven't spoken to anyone. They have not. They have alternative parts suggestion. They can play around with volume. You know, if I order two boards, if I order 50 boards, like you don't have to have your own procurement team involved, right? You can just play around with numbers and see prices drop, go up, whatever would be the case. And then think about it, right? Like, is this one I want to order? And then ultimately go ahead and place the order.

Our fastest shipping is 10 days. In 10 days, you have your prototype build and ship at whatever doorstep, whether you're working from home or in the office or whatever. It's shipped in there. So, MacroFab is one of those companies that has basically taken out all these abstract conversations that you guys were having about... The closest term that I feel about MacroFab is the digital threat.

Mishaal Murawala (11:08.686)
So you have a design, and Altium is one of the biggest design tools that the PCB design engineers ultimately use. They're also invested in MacroFab. We kind of had a product where you can design in Altium software. From the product itself, you could say, get me a quote.

the design comes into Magrfa platform and we send them a quote and they can actually place straight up place an order. So that's a digital threat, right? Like from design all the way up to manufacturing is all done within the platform. Versus designing one platform, download the file, upload the file into a different platform. Then once that is done, then, you know, get a quote, send those manufacturing instructions to your manufacturer. Or this is streamlined, one straight line process.

And that's a concept that's difficult for a lot of people to grasp because they don't believe, a lot of times they don't even believe this is even possible. They're like, what are you talking about? And then we take them from prototype to production straight via the platform. Obviously more people get involved. It's not an engineer's decision to, you know, manufacture say 5 ,000 pieces of that. And, you know, procurement people getting involved in, you know, they're...

There are months worth of conversation that actually happened before production conversation. But the point is, you're in the platform already to move from 10 to a thousand or 10 ,000 unit. It's all, all these other negotiations that need to happen. But from a manufacturing standpoint, all the instructions are already there.

So now you're not haggling about, right? What factory should I go build? Like that's one of the biggest benefits of working with MagnaFab is, you know, we have a factory network, right? So we are a marketplace. So we have a hundred factories, close to a hundred factories in our network, right? So your product could be as complex as it could be. It could be as simple as possible. We have factories in Canada, we have factories in the U .S. and we have factories in Mexico, right? So.

Mishaal Murawala (13:20.91)
basically all North American manufacturing. It could be an ITAR project where you cannot literally ship your product, you don't get your products built in China or Asia for that matter. So all these manufacturing happens in North America itself. But the moment you decide to move from prototype to production, and most of our prototypes actually happen here in our Houston facility, Houston, Texas, at least 50 to 70 percent of prototyping actually gets done.

Andrya (13:31.689)
Mm -hmm.

Andrya (13:44.105)
Okay.

Mishaal Murawala (13:49.55)
in our Houston facility. Some of them go out of our main factory, but it is still within our network, right? We are the ones who are responsible for the quality of your product. It doesn't matter what factory it gets built. You work with that period, what happens in the background, right? This factory network is more about matching the right product to the right factory.

Andrya (14:12.009)
Hmm.

Mishaal Murawala (14:13.998)
Right, in a traditional company, there would be a team of people, right, like either the procurement head, depending on what titles do want in different companies. It could be a manufacturing ops team, it could be a production engineer. They have to go and discover all these different factories and figure out what's the right factory for the product that they need to get built. In our case, that is done via our platform, right? Based on what your product is, what the price point is, we figure out what's the best factory to get your product.

So it doesn't matter what needs to be done. You continue to work with MacroFab. You have a project manager, you have your support team, everyone at your disposal. You don't have to worry about the backend. That's all done by us. We manage your supply chain, we manage your component procurement. All of that stuff is done by MacroFab. So you basically have outsourced your manufacturing completely.

Right? You get your weekly updates. So, I mean, the concept is so out there that it takes a while for people to even understand when we say factory network, it's like, what does that even mean? Like who's manufacturing? It's like, it will be manufactured by a factory, but you, for you as a customer, it's macro fact, right? If there was a quality issue, if there is a delivery time issue, any issues that you run into, if you want the status on your project,

Andrya (15:08.617)
No!

Andrya (15:29.609)
Mm -hmm.

Mishaal Murawala (15:37.422)
All your statuses are in the platform, but if you still need to have a conversation and have a weekly meeting on, you know, what does my production schedule look like, you have a PM design. You don't have to deal with the factory and what's happening over there. It's like you have a point person and an acrobat. You're 100 % responsible for your production. So, yeah, yeah, it is. And.

Andrya (15:46.569)
Hmm.

Andrya (15:55.465)
Wow, it's amazing simplicity. But I can see how it would be difficult because it's so different. Yeah.

Mishaal Murawala (16:04.238)
Correct, correct. People come to our website, right, when they start their journey on our website, it's a, you know, they have a lens. If you look at how the industry is divided today, there are prototyping shops where you go and you do your prototypes. And then there are production houses, right? You have your flexes, jables of the world, you know, tier ones, and then there are tier twos, and then there are tier three manufacturers. But most of them do either or.

The prototyping shots are really well suited just to build your quick prototypes. They can go to volume production. And then there are these volume people that don't want to get involved in this two pieces, five pieces, 10 pieces, right? Like that's not what they do. Like that's not what the line is, is, is built for. It's not efficient for them to do that.

So when a lot of our engineers come to our website, they come with a lens. They're like, I need a prototype, MatterFab does prototyping. So we have to constantly remind them throughout the journey and be like, prototyping is a phase. Once you are ready to move on to the next phase, MatterFab will still be your partner. We do end to end. All the way up till 3PL.

you know, third party logistics and testing and packaging, all of it. Like we do end to end, so you don't have to go out and, you know, deal with seven different vendors. You continue to work with that one point of contact at Microfax.

Right? And that's a difficult, again, a concept that's difficult for people to grasp because these guys have accepted the way of life and life sucks and life is tough in manufacturing and this is how these things are and they have accepted their fate. And so when they see something like this, like too good to be true. So that's, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, and that's, that's where most of our.

Andrya (18:04.777)
For sure.

Mishaal Murawala (18:10.318)
effort goes into when we talk to our customers, it's like they don't have doubt about the quality of our products or whatever. It's just making them understand how this, everything that you have read in all these research documents practically happens here. And it's just, you know, spend a lot of time educating people. There's a better way to do electronics manufacturing.

Andrya (18:30.857)
Yeah!

In your time with clients and customers, what would you say or who would you say are the primary people that you work with that really get the most out of working with you? Tell me a little bit about who they are and how you impact their business.

Mishaal Murawala (18:54.574)
There are companies who really, really love this entire concept of what we have to offer, right? But not everyone understands the value, like quite frankly, a lot of people see us as just another manufacturing vendor where they can get their products built. There are...

I can name some of the companies, but you know, some of the companies that we work with really understand the value of MacroFab, the platform that we have, go from prototype to production. You know, they have hundreds of engineers. These are giant companies. They have hundreds of engineers. And the fact that every engineering team, obviously, you know, these are big companies, so they have multiple engineering teams working on completely different set of products and whatnot.

Every engineer goes out and they have an approved vendor list. And then if probably for whatever reason, they have quality issues, lead time issues, and they need something else done, they have to kind of bend, I would say, the rules and go outside the vendor list that has been approved by the company. But you have to understand that there are close to 100, 115 engineers in a lot of these companies and everyone is going out and doing that stuff.

So when they see our platform, right, at a leadership level, they're like, so all of our engineers can sign up on the platform. We can build teams within the platform so they still continue to work as a team. We can add a procurement head into that team so the payment is all processed via the procurement team versus every engineer going out and swiping the cards out. You know, so.

So there are companies like this that really understand and value the platform that we offer. So from an engineer standpoint, there is this prototype in low volume manufacturing that they really love the platform and they like this self -serve way of doing business where they're having to talk to a salesperson every time. Look at any traditional manufacturing website, any traditional manufacturing website, and the only way to work with them, there is a form you have to fill out.

Mishaal Murawala (21:12.398)
And it says, request a sales contact. Literally go across the spectrum and go and try to work with any manufacturer. And there is only one form, request a sales contact. You have to talk to someone to even get a simple basic quote. What's this here, right? You just go on your self -serve journey. So the platform really appeals to this engineering audience that does not want, they have enough meetings that they have to attend.

Andrya (21:40.169)
Mm.

Mishaal Murawala (21:40.398)
and they have to talk more than they like. Right. So the fact that on the platform that they don't have to talk to anyone, they can just do their own stuff. And if they get stuck, they can just literally chat on the platform with our support team, get the help they need and move on. Right. They have like, they are our happiest customers. yeah. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's for them. Yeah. You were telling me I don't have to talk to anyone. It's like, yeah.

Andrya (21:57.737)
That's a dream. It's a day incredible.

Mishaal Murawala (22:09.262)
Show me where this thing is. So that's an audience that we work with. We work with mid -size, small, mid -size, even conglomerates. It depends on the type of problem they're trying to solve. Different companies see different value in what MapFab has to offer. Factory network is not for everyone. A lot of people are like, well, why do I care if you have 100 factories in your network? I just need my product manufacturer.

The point a lot of people won't understand is like, today you get all your, so say you have 26 products in your portfolio. All your 26 products are getting built in one factory. It is just not possible that one factory is good at all of those. Just not possible, right? And not all products are high selling products, right?

It's generally the top three or four products that drive 80 % of the revenue. Everything else is long tail. So then a lot of times these guys get fired by the whole manufacturing. It's like, look, we can't afford to build three of these products a month. It just shuts down our line, build these three products, restart the line. It's not efficient, so they get fired. That's where the factory network comes into picture.

right, based on the complexity of your product, the volume at which you need to build those products, we'll put you in a plant that is designed for that volume.

Right. And for whatever reason, for whatever reason, if it doesn't pan out, again, all your work instructions, all your documentation exists in our platform. We can move you to another factory. And again, this is as far as I remember, we never had to do it. And this kind of freaks people out saying, you're going to move me to another factory. And it's like, well, it's not that easy. It's not like, you know.

Mishaal Murawala (24:08.11)
three months we do manufacturing in one factory, I'm like, you know what, we're gonna move to another factory. It's like an extreme case example. But it's possible if we have to. So there are supply chain teams. A lot of supply chain teams love the level of visibility that they get. So we are talking about sourcing millions of components for people. Some of the boards...

Andrya (24:11.585)
You

Mishaal Murawala (24:36.11)
that Vibilla is so complex with so many parts, right? And we procure all those components for them. They go into the platform and they can literally see what has been purchased, what are the inventory levels, how much of that is getting used in the production cycle right now, how much excess inventory that VIA City has. It's a full view. Again, if the supply chain...

team wants to talk to a PM and we have weekly meetings with most of our clients, right? With the PM where we kind of give them the production schedule and insights into what's happening with their manufacturing. But even without that, if they just want to go into the platform and check the status, all the status is right there. So it truly takes company that is willing to accept that there is a better way to do stuff and not get scared of...

using technology that will better their life. I think those are ideal fit customers who really understand the concept versus trying to force people to like the concept. There are people who just don't get it. And for whatever reason, they have been burned in the past with some other flashy object and they're like, man, this looks like that one. It's too flashy and too good to be true. Don't want to go down that path.

Andrya (25:48.777)
Mm -hmm.

Andrya (25:58.697)
Mm -hmm.

Mishaal Murawala (26:00.75)
And that's fine too, right? But then they obviously are not the best fit for us.

Andrya (26:47.913)
So the next question is, Michelle, every company has a unique journey. I'm curious, can you tell me a little bit about the history of MacroFab and how we got to today?

Mishaal Murawala (26:52.846)
Yeah.

Mishaal Murawala (27:07.47)
Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, our co -found themselves, so there are two, there's Chris Sheridan, there is Parker, Parker actually runs a podcast as well. Both these guys, they weren't into manufacturing, right? And...

It's a very typical, almost like a cliche story of an entrepreneur. You know, Church has found companies in the past as well. But, you know, he was working on a robotics company and they were running into these issues of lead times, quality, where do we go get our products built?

Mishaal Murawala (28:01.87)
You know, everything that I just spoke about as a solution were their problems that they were running into 10, 12 years ago, right? And it's a very typical entrepreneur story where they constantly kept running into this issue of, you know, how do I get my products? But then it's a question that a lot of startup hardware startup companies have to actually face, right? There are, if you...

When you talk about electronics manufacturing, right? A lot of people think about you know, the Foxconn Apple kind of made them more famous than they probably should be or or Jables and and flexes of the world, but these are tier one manufacturers Right, you don't go to a tier one manufacturer and say I want 30 units built right there these guys work with companies that need millions of something

Right, so a lot of these hardware companies are in this dilemma, right? Like, so they would go down the street from their garage if they're working out of, and work with a guy who's willing to solder components on a PCB board, right? Or find another small, really, really small company in a shed that will do stuff like that for them. There is no level of complexity you can add to your prototype to get it built because there is no one who's going to build with you.

Right. And I've seen that firsthand too. And if you watch enough Shark Tank, honestly, you will see examples of entrepreneurs coming on Shark Tank and going through their journey of how difficult it was for them to get their hardware prototypes. But even when they walk into Shark Tank, they have this ugly looking piece. And I'm like, I think you could have done a better job at prototyping. But it is not their fault. No one wants to work with them at that point in the journey.

So it's one of those very typical, I have a pain, and you know what? I'm going to solve it. And literally, that's how Maverick Harris came into play. They came up with this. And again, I'm telling you, if you ever end up meeting these two guys, I highly recommend you talk to them as well. These are the guys who, they see a problem, and they will solve it.

Andrya (30:04.521)
I love those stories.

Mishaal Murawala (30:22.542)
And it's a very typical, as I said, an entrepreneur story, but they built this giant now, right, that started with, I want to solve a problem for myself. Wait, there is a larger audience for this. There are more people who are going, obviously going through this problem. You know, again, like a typical entrepreneur, right, they have shipped products by hands. They have sold their parts to a PCB board by hand and shipped it to...

to customers, right? So they started that journey over there. And today, 10 years into the company and hundreds and hundreds of customers that we have, we literally get hundreds of people signing up on the platform every single month. Every single customer that you talk to, this is exactly their pain point, right? They need something cheap, fast.

A lot of times they have a mandate to build something in the US. They don't know where to go and start the journey. They don't have a way to really enhance the way they work today. As I said, they are still stuck in...

sure I can send it overseas and get it done cheap, but then I spend two weeks just going back and forth on manufacturing instructions. After that, it's super fast and it's dirt cheap, but I already spent two weeks just explaining to someone via emails on what I actually need versus what these guys have ended up building a product where...

90 % of that stuff has been taken away. People still need, a lot of times, they still need, excuse me, hand holding on some of the pieces that they need to stitch together on the platform. But 90 % of our customers literally just go through the platform on their own. So again, typical story journey started with, I have a problem. I can build electronics the way it should be built. And you know,

Mishaal Murawala (32:31.822)
They continue to grow. They continue to keep adding features to the platform where, again, today we have engineers from all walks of life, people who are from smaller businesses all the way up to conglomerates who actually come use the platform as a team and really work the modern way that it should be.

Andrya (32:59.945)
In all of these interviews, this that question about, well, where did all this come from is one of my favorites. And it's pretty consistent. You do hear some different stories, you know, of how people got there. But it's, I guess, unsurprising that in the United States, people often see challenges in their day to day roles, maybe their career or their industry. And they say, hey,

How about no? Let's make a new way to do this. So kind of following that.

Mishaal Murawala (33:34.094)
No, I think you really need the hustle and grit to recognize that there is a problem and to go out and solve that problem. I mean, to date, I mean, manufacturing is not easy. Let's keep that thing straight, right? No matter what you do, it is still, you know, with COVID, we exposed and everyone suddenly became a supply chain expert and everything was.

out of stock and everyone is like, what is this supply chain? Like people never spoke like this. Like honestly, even household, like any houses you walk into and they are using the word supply chain. And I'm like, I swear to God, like you do not look like a person who would ever use a term supply chain in your entire life. Right? And all of a sudden everyone is like an expert. They're talking about congestion at ports and shipping container costs. And I'm like,

Andrya (34:20.105)
Mm -hmm.

Mishaal Murawala (34:29.102)
This whole COVID kind of made everyone an expert, but people who have been in electronics long enough know that these problems existed and to date exist. Like has the component availability improved by, I don't know how many percent, but by a big margin. Yes, it has. Are there still components that are still hard to find? Yeah. An engineer still designs a board.

and they upload their design and they look at and the components are still hard to find. Some of these aspects has not changed for the engineer. It obviously was exaggerated during the COVID times. But even pre -COVID, that situation always existed. You always had chip shortage, always. It never was like you wanted a million chips or something and it's like, sure, yeah, here's the bag of... Here you go. No, they were always in short supply.

Andrya (35:19.945)
Hahaha!

Andrya (35:25.673)
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It's such a great point and all the listeners I'm sure are going to relate because it's a part of our, not just household conversations, but definitely in our manufacturer meeting and industrial related conversations. I'm curious as we close up today, if you had to identify a single greatest strength,

Mishaal Murawala (35:26.606)
and they are today as well.

Ahem.

Andrya (35:54.408)
of macro fab. What would you say that is?

Mishaal Murawala (36:00.946)
I think the listeners are gonna get tired of me talking about this particular thing, but look, manufacturing is hard. I cannot emphasize that enough. To find a right partner in manufacturing, not just electronics, just in general, right? I'm not here to advertise MancoFab, but in general, manufacturing is hard, right? You can see...

Even big organization. There was an interesting conversation I was a part of. There was a survey that was done, I think almost like eight months on some time ago. And it's like, if you look around you, most of the products around you have become monotone, right? Like they are all black, white, blue, max, right? If you want something colorful, it's blue.

We, you know, the world around us has just lost color. Like even if you look at my desk right now, it's all just black, gray, and silver. And people are like, why have we lost color? Like why is it difficult to find products that have color? And it's like, you cannot manufacture them that easily. So when you see a purple, right, or a pink, or a yellow on a shoe or your clothes,

From that prototype that you had decided to building that millions of the same units every single time, it is a hard, hard job. You just cannot have the same consistency for so many reasons. So companies have, you know, just keep shipping black, white, blue, you know, they get fancy and make it red, right? And that's it. That's all you're gonna see.

And so again, it is not just electronics manufacturing is tough. It is just manufacturing in general is just tough. So having said that.

Andrya (38:01.257)
It's such a funny example that you say, I had never heard anyone else say this. I guess it's been about 10 years. There was a client I had been in the manufacturing industry for a while, so worked different industries. One client was set on his product being as a metal product being lime green. And it took months to find a

Mishaal Murawala (38:26.19)
Yeah.

Andrya (38:29.065)
manufacturer that could execute not just lime green, but because of the industrial application, it had to be a specific type of powder coating. And it was just, I mean, it took him months to solve that challenge. And part of his growth strategy was, you know, new product drops. And so if you can't solve this challenge, you can't scale and grow. So,

Even, I doubt the listeners could be tired of this one because everyone I think is a little triggered by this color question. It's a really good point, Michelle.

Mishaal Murawala (39:04.334)
Yeah.

I mean, look around, right? If you look at Tesla, right? They have no shortage of talented engineers on their team, no shortage of funding, no shortage of skill sets, machinery, like you name it, they have it. They still can get that Tesla Cybertruck out in volumes that they have been promising.

People pay for, pre -pay for their truck like three years ago or whatever, right? And they're still waiting for their shipping to come up. And so it's not just electronics, it's not just whatever, right? Like building is tough. It is not an easy job to do. So from a, from a MacroFab perspective, look, we recognize that, right? There was a lot of frustration that happens. People do not change manufacturer just because one day they woke up and they're like, you know what? I'm changing my life.

I'm going to change my manufacturer. They generally go to another manufacturer when something's messed up. Either they got fired, they know they're going to get fired, the quality has been an issue for a long time, the prices have been, like, there is always a problem that someone is dealing with when they fill out a form to request a sales contact. No procurement supply chain operations person will ever go out.

and say, let's just change things up. Right? So we recognize that when any, anytime when someone comes to comes to us and says, I need to build X, like we know that they're dealing with something. It is bigger than I need X. Right? And so we, we understand, we recognize that. And we, this is why, you know, we have teams who we hire.

Mishaal Murawala (40:52.078)
There is a lot of process that happens in the background. What kind of project managers do we hire? What kind of on -site engineers do we need? There are customer -facing engineers who really talk to the engineering team. There are engineers who work in the background.

We are a full stack manufacturing powerhouse. We are not just, you know, send me your instructions and send you a production guy and we'll start producing something. We take over entire manufacturing away from you. Right. So at every single step, we have our own procurement team. Right. What, what's the, what does the right profile of a procurement team look like? We spend like you, it's hard for a lot of people to believe that as a manufacturing technology manufacturing company. Right.

the amount of time we spend on hiring the right people. Because we know when someone comes to us, they are already tired and frustrated of something. And we do want to make sure that their experience with us is beyond delightful. So the moment they talk to the salesperson as our first point of entry, right, all the way up to...

you know, if they end up going to the factory and every single person even on the factory floor, they know how to communicate what to talk, what to let people know, what do they really care about, right? Why would someone do a factory tour? No one just wants to walk a factory floor and just hang out, right? They have a concern.

Andrya (42:16.585)
Absolutely.

Mishaal Murawala (42:17.038)
They want to make sure that the factory is the right factory, the product is going to build the right way. So we don't prioritize taking them out for lunch. We spend the whole time walking on the floor, walking them through the machine, walking them through our QA process. We know exactly what they're looking for. So that's in a nutshell, that's the biggest pro of working with Maverick.

We kind of spend a lot of time thinking about customer pain points that is beyond just how do we manufacture the product.

Andrya (42:54.569)
Mm -hmm. Thank you. Wow, I am really energized and excited about today's conversation. I think mainly because I'm so, I talk to so many different manufacturers that are not constantly in a state of tired and frustration, but when you are in that state, which does happen with frequency because of the change and demands put on the industry.

It's just so challenging and solutions like this that offer simplicity at these wide scale abilities and bring people kind of more into the forefront of using tech platforms to collaborate, I think can make a major difference in not just the manufacturing industry, but American innovation as a whole. So thank you so much for your time and your insights today. And anyone who's listening,

Especially if you're in the middle of experiencing something frustrated in your manufacturing process, maybe something's not going right, or maybe you're prototyping or looking for the right partner, check out MacroFab. Maybe you heard something today that you knew this is what our team needs from engineering to procurement. Go to macrofab .com and talk to Michelle's team. They can help you out from there.

From today's episode, I am so excited that you guys were able to hear about electronics automation and new things that are happening in the industry. And thank you again today for listening. Thank you, Michelle, for being here.

Mishaal Murawala (44:32.334)
Thanks for having me. It was a fun chat. Thank you.

Andrya (44:35.177)
Beautiful, yeah. All right, thanks listeners. Have a good one and we'll see you in the next episode.

Andrya (44:46.537)
Okay.