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00:00:00 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Question. Well, I have a lot, but we won't Okay. We won't have time for it all today. So Oh, okay. No. So my my real reason for reaching out to you is trying to figure out where should cases like product reliability litigation sit? 00:00:21 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Oh, okay. Yeah. 00:00:22 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Okay. Think they sit with Norbert. Well, they sit with Christian Barter, and then I think they fall to Norbert on the technical side. And Amity asked if we could set something similar up to here. And I said, well, the only two people I think who have the skill for this would be either Mark or Amanda. And I said, I honestly don't know enough about either person's job to know where that would be best. So I wanted to reach out so I haven't talked to Amanda about it, so I just wanted to reach out to you and kinda see what do you see do you think it does belong in either side? Do you think it doesn't belong either side or 00:01:01 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Personally, I've done some reliability engineering very like, I'm I'm talking, like, Frankie first year stuff, you know. So, like, we haven't gotten to, like, sophomore level, but I have done just a little bit jet working with engineers. I have not gone much further than that. The I'm I'm open to it. So it's definitely an ex natural extension of quality. Okay. If if we wanna get into that. I also know that I'd have to honestly ups upscale substantially is the short answer for legal. And that's that's a big if we're getting into, like, legal regulatory and so forth, I'll need to I'll need to find actually the source material and have basically, like, an hour a night of study. 00:01:41 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Well, so and honestly, a lot of cases I mean, I would still be involved on the legal side. So Mhmm. Like, in in headquarters, Leah I'm gonna butcher her last name, but, like, Matt Faulkner, Matt something. Mhmm. She's the legal op and I keep her informed. But like, what we're looking for is someone who has at least an engineer's background to understand the question. And I'm gonna share my screen once I find it real quick 00:02:09 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Yep. 00:02:10 - [SCOTT_WARNER] To show you kinda what they're looking for. Because there is the legal side that is Yep. A lot. But, realistically, the workload for you would be simply down to answering questions. And I don't most of them probably fall to headquarters, but this is where I don't really know. So 00:02:31 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Yeah. Okay. 00:02:34 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Let me actually the only thing bad about having this monitor is sharing the screen. It gets weird. 00:02:42 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Do you have the the curving monitor? Yeah. The ultra Excellent. Excellent. 00:02:48 - [SCOTT_WARNER] I think 00:02:48 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] It's one of those I've I finally just upgraded to a way for you're gonna laugh at me. I finally got the right was it nine by what the orientation, the rectangle orientation monitor? Yeah. I finally got one of those because my old monitor blew up. So speaking of reliability, I actually got some pretty good life out of that. Alright. Let's see what we got here. So 00:03:07 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Can you see it okay, or is that too small? Or Oh, 00:03:09 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] it looks good. Looks good. Yeah. 00:03:11 - [SCOTT_WARNER] So there's two spreadsheets here, and so because there's two documents. There's ROGs and RPPs. I don't know. I can't I I know what they mean. I just can't think of it right now. But Mhmm. So, you know, please describe the subject's all sale and responding, identify, you know, all these things. So so this is my response. You know? And I put data owner, like, location. So, you know, anything with USA is my job or my team's really to answer. And then there's these things that are probably in between, and this is kinda where I wonder if someone like, you know I'm just gonna say you. I don't necessarily mean you right now, but somebody else could help maybe figure out. So, like, please identify the persons involved designing, manufacturing, testing the saw, and similar stuff, blah blah blah. So the question is is HQ is probably gonna have to answer this. It's about aligning in a way on some of these that make sense to someone like Norbert so that because he and I have not only one language barrier, but two on the technical side. 00:04:20 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Yeah. Exactly. 00:04:21 - [SCOTT_WARNER] So, so there's just a lot of these kinds of questions. And the tricky part is, for me, is that Norbert and and Christian don't want things in writing because of the viability piece behind it. Right? So it's like how do we share these things without creating this really long discovery trail and things like that? So for me, it's pretty simple in that I continue to keep attorneys and stuff on copy so that it becomes, you know, stays privileged information. But, you know, if I were just to email this to Norbert, then that creates issues. Right? 00:04:56 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Exactly. 00:04:57 - [SCOTT_WARNER] So first off, I didn't have any idea what capacity looks like for you. I mean, if you say, dude, I'm buried, you know, there's no no capacity, then we don't even have to worry about it. If you said, you know, hey. I've got some capacity. I've I've never done this before, but I'd be happy to learn it. We can talk. If you say, hey. You know, that doesn't really belong with me, then I could, you know, like I said, check with Amanda or whatever I want whatever looks So 00:05:22 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] No. It'd it'd be the second one. Right now, actually, what's funny is I have six things going on right now, but then when we when they fizzle out, it's it's a try I thought it was a it was a it was a square wave. It's actually a triangle wave. Everything at once, and then they start trickling down. And then I'm like then I have, like, a week open where I'm actively searching search and rescue operations, where I'm trying to find I'm basically looking for an issue or something like that where I have some time. So that's how it always is. So I always have some back burner projects. Okay. And I'm more than happy to help. So is is the short Yeah. Just so 00:05:55 - [SCOTT_WARNER] you kinda have an understanding of what the commitment is to to be involved in these is so a lot of these came to me in November, and we're just you know, we're wrapping them up. So it's not like when you get these, it's like everything's on fire till you get it back. Now I will be honest on this one. They wanted it back far sooner, and there's lots of reasons why we haven't yet. But, you know, so this one has a little bit of hurry behind it. But, like, normally, you know, thirty, sixty, ninety days, somewhere in there is is an appropriate response time. You know? And and there are a lot, but a lot of them are the same. You know? It's like I don't even hold on. It's small on my screen here. 00:06:37 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Yeah. And some of those, we may have to clarify the wording, by the way, but I'll I'll I'll trust legal your legal representation for the company because it says, we we have no testing in the facility. I'm like, we actually do not for safety. So we don't we should say maybe we don't have this kind of testing for you know, Festool USA a sales. And we don't perform this kind of testing. 00:06:57 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my answers are the basic answers, and then I work with legal to draft the right words. You know? It's just, you know, basically, I'm trying to help them understand we're not a production facility here. You know? We're a sales in Exactly. And so 00:07:11 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Exactly. Yeah. 00:07:16 - [SCOTT_WARNER] So, anyway, so the way this would generally work is when one comes in, I I always initiate the case. I would make sure that you're aware of it. And then when they start putting in request for discovery or production of materials, you and I would probably sit in a room together, look at it, make sure we understand the question, determine who who maybe the best answer person would be, and then my ask would be then that you probably set up calls with Norman or or or whomever, but, you know, to get the data back. So I really don't think it would be a huge undertaking, but I again, I don't ever wanna assume. So 00:07:59 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] No. It's good. Yeah. I'm I'm happy to be involved in in stuff like this, you know, unless I've got, like, a like I said, if you needed it in thirty days, I may flat out tell you, I cannot do it in thirty days or maybe sixty, you know, or something like that. Depending on the on the big project we're working on at the time. So something like that. Okay. I'm more than happy to do this, though. So it's like, I'm just giving you the because right now, I'm looking at my Eisenhower, and I'm like, in about two weeks, I'll have some time free up. Yeah. So it's basically so something like that. So 00:08:26 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Yeah. And, you know, like I said, most of this isn't time critical, so it's not a big deal. And I'm working with Norbert on this one specifically, you know, but it's kinda one of those things. I'm just trying to decide what's the best way for Festool as we become a bigger entity, you know. And and to me, it it doesn't make a lot of sense to grow the legal side of the department, but, you know, maybe quality, you know, in in product liabilities, compliance, whatever we wanna call it, is an area where investment might make sense or something like that. So 00:08:55 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] No. It doesn't make sense. Actually, and this is it's one thing I've gone I've done reliability. This is actually new for me. A lot of the except for more of when I was actually the EHS side, it was quality in EHS. So we had some disposal criteria. We started going into the similar similar how was how were during production, how were these products disposed of, you know? We got into some of that. So I've done some of that. And I'm like, this actually, this would be excellent. This would be a good step. I actually would like to do this because I've never I've never done much of this aside from reliability side, but we get into legal and regulatory. And I'm like, I said this it's interesting and I'm happy to do it. So it's just I'm just as long as you don't mind me stumbling on my face a few times, you know. 00:09:37 - [SCOTT_WARNER] No. I it the reason why I thought it would be good for you is because you and I can talk pretty easy and, you know, I I can answer pretty much any question or I know where to get the answer, but I think having someone with a pretty good idea of, well first off, general technical skill, but secondly, technical skill on our products would make things easier on me because there's lot of times I spend chasing technical item that someone else knows, you know. And I think I've even come to you about some of these things in the past, you know, so it's 00:10:09 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Oh, yeah. 00:10:10 - [SCOTT_WARNER] You know, and I do work with Amanda from time to time as well because of the I know she's been involved with, like, MET testing and stuff, but there's a lot of these things that you probably either already know or have access to. And it just takes a lot of time for me to to go the full scope of it. So 00:10:26 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] okay. I still have I still have my guy from Intertek on speed dial. If we if we need an emergency, he's good, by the way. So Okay. Yeah. It's I think MET actually, the people doing MET are a level up from But if you need an emergency, this guy's Chicago, I think. Let me see. Okay. Yeah. Arlington Heights, Illinois. So I haven't talked to him about five years. But we we because I've done it with because you mentioned MET testing. Like, I have done that. So I've done CE. I've done Intertek was ETL on new products. It was from it was it's hard to compare to this side. This would be like from a custom sensor module system we would build. That system was was rigorous rigorously CE tested, but then we would integrate, and that's where it got complicated. So I'm like, this is, you know, a very diverse product offering. So it's a little bit different. But yeah. 00:11:18 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Yeah. So Well, I think that that makes sense. And I I think at the end of the day, this would kinda I I think help kinda just understand kinda where we're at. It would put you in a good spot to give, you know, because I'm always trying to figure out how we can grow people and, you know, not not that you're not doing a good job. Just anytime you can pick up more and more responsibility, that's I think, good for a career. So 00:11:39 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] I'm happy to I'm I'm happy to do it. I'm actually of all things, I've been upscaling on what's different with with RF engineering. I just completed a class. How the hey. Hey. This antenna now does this. I'm like, cool. Because I think the joke was it says something to devil, and I said, what version of Bluetooth are we on? Last one I took was 2O. He start cracking up. He was like, you realize that we're up, like, past four o right now? And I'm like, I I'm 00:12:01 - [SCOTT_WARNER] in big trouble. So It's been a Yeah. 00:12:04 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] It's been a minute. Yeah. 00:12:06 - [SCOTT_WARNER] So cool. Well, then I will kinda start putting your name on things as I get them. So what I'm trying to do is build a an SOP for this, kinda just, you know, who are the contact points? What are the escalation paths look like? So once I get that done, you and I'll sit down for, you know, half hour or so and kinda go over it and 00:12:23 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Yep. 00:12:24 - [SCOTT_WARNER] See if you have any questions on that part. And then kinda just as these roll through, I'll include you kind of in the the plan. And and when it comes to, like, availability, I would just say, you know, just be honest with me. If if there's no bandwidth, say there's no bandwidth. If there is bandwidth, we'll figure it out. But realistically, it's just trying to, you know, find find the right way to answer these as fast as possible. So 00:12:47 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Yep. I agree. It's good. 00:12:49 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Cool, man. Alright. Well, that's really all I had for today. Unless you have more. So 00:12:54 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] No. It's that's all I got. On this, it's like it's one of those I'm I'm always reluctant to say anything regulatory. I'm happy to do it. At the same time, I'm like, I know enough to be dangerous. I definitely need need some upskilling. How's that? Here's the short answer. So I'll need some mentoring and coaching on that. So 00:13:10 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Yeah. I can I'll help with the stuff I've done. And if and if you find, you know, that there's that there's, I I I'm gonna say professional training or or op opportunities, let me know, and we'll we'll let's discuss those as well because this is something that's not gonna go away. It's just gonna get bigger and bigger for us as we continue to grow. So but, you know, for now, I thought let's let's see what it looks like to have both of us on it, and then that'll help spread the workload a little bit, and we can go from there. So I'll be meeting with Norbert on Friday, and I'll kinda let him know that I talked to you and that and that he's always welcome to have you dumb it down for me if he needs, you know, to to get an idea through or something like 00:13:52 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] that. No. It's it's fine because I've I've been the one writing. Actually, Germany has been writing technical documents. They've been trying to translate them to English. I said, send them to me in German real quick. I it'll take me a bit, and I'll write them out in technical English, and then I'll I send it up. I said, please have a legal representative look at this. Yes. This is what I always disclaimer, and he's like, actually, they took it as is. Good job, Mark. I I was like, yeah. I've I've written. I was like, I'm really surprised. Maybe the description was used, but I don't I don't know. But Yeah. It's like he's like, no. It was great because we don't know how to write this in English. Next thing I know, I have another document in my inbox. I'm like, okay. 00:14:27 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Perfect. There we go. Alright. 00:14:28 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] So, yeah, I'm happy to do it. So 00:14:30 - [SCOTT_WARNER] I appreciate it, Mark. Alright. Well, I will start drafting these things and get them to you. And then so sometime probably next week, we'll price it down for thirty minutes or so and kinda look at it if that's cool with you. 00:14:40 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Sounds good. Also, I topic two, if you've got a second, we just finished the quarter semiannual quality report. Would you like a copy? 00:14:49 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Yeah. I I wouldn't mind seeing it just to kinda get a feel for what's going on out there, and I'm still trying to learn everything, and that'll any little bit of data 00:14:57 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] helps. So Okay. Well, it's it's a lot of data. So it's like, well, sorry in advance, but it's returns and warranties and all that stuff. But it's one of those well, I have it done. I send it to my immediate circle. Who else wants to see it? That's maybe something we should define. It's just it's a minor thing. But who all wants to see it? And I'll send it up the line. I'll just keep forwarding the email or send up a we we queue up a, like, a quality tree, I guess, through the email and it just sends to there. So whoever is interested. 00:15:25 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Yeah. Let me take a peek at it and then, like, Amity is starting to get more interested, but to a certain level. So let me see kinda what it is. And and if she wants us to get, I'll have you send it to her and then we can go from there. 00:15:34 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Okay. Alright. Sounds good. Yeah. I just corrected a grammar error, it'll be I can send it to you here in a few minutes. 00:15:40 - [SCOTT_WARNER] So Thanks. Appreciate it, Mark. 00:15:41 - [MARK_MCKOWEN] Hey. Appreciate you. 00:15:42 - [SCOTT_WARNER] Take care, Alright. We'll see.
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