FTR co-host Brian Musker shares two stories from his recent adventures outside of the FCH data lab (15:32). Fastener industry guru Carmen Vertullo explains lot traceability and why you should be on good terms with your test lab (28:19). WTC Managed IT Services senior consultant Will Snyder provides an important Microsoft security tip all distributors should understand (10:05). PLUS: What happened at the NFDA web conference on the new tariffs. Run time: 53:35.
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Life of Brian
Fastener Industry News & Events
Brian will be with us as well on the other side of the break. If you caught the last episode, we promised to have him tell a story or two. That’ll be one of the features in the episode. It’s a short one. This is episode 211 of the show. We’ll be getting it out on February 21st, 2025. Thanks so much for tuning in, everybody. There are tons going on in the fastener world, along with the NCFA event.
I sat in for the NFDA webinar that focused on the tariffs that were announced. Nobody wants to go on record quite yet. Chris Donnell of Scanwell led the conversation with the NFDA. I’ll mention a little bit more about that in a second. First, let’s thank the sponsors of the show. They make this show possible. The title sponsors are Brighton-Best International, “Tested and tried true, Brighton-Best,” Global Fasteners, “Quality the first time, go Global,” and Star Stainless, “Right off the shelf, it’s Star.”
The show is also sponsored by Buckeye Fasteners and the Ohio Nut & Bolt Company, BTM Manufacturing, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, Fastener Technology International, Fastener Fair USA, INxSQL Software, J.Lanfranco, Solution Industries, Volt Industrial Plastics, and Würth Industry USA. Our email address is FTR@FullyThreaded.com. Maybe you’ve got a question or comment. Maybe it’s something about the tariffs. Fire away. We’d be glad to hear from you.
As mentioned, Brian will be telling a story or two on this episode. I don’t even know if we want to call it a Fastener Training Minute. It’s more like a Fastener Training Hour. It’s not that long, but it’s an extended session with Carmen Vertullo. He’ll be talking about test labs, something he knows quite a bit about. We figured it deserved its own feature.
Will Snyder with WTC will launch the next segment with that. He’s got a quick tip for everybody out there who uses Microsoft in their operation. Let’s face it. It’s about everybody, whether we like it or not. This one’s nice and compressed, for everybody who likes a tighter show. I made it out to Buckeye. I’d like to thank Tony Martinez. He did a great job of hosting everybody. It’s a nice turnout from the NCFA. On the modern side, his guys, Mike and Jake, keep that place humming.
As many times as you go through some of these operations, if you’re paying attention, you’ll learn something every time. There were a lot of veterans on the tour. There were some newer folks, but a lot of vets as well. If you are not participating in these associations and going on these plant tours and warehouse tours that they offer, you’re missing out big time. This is a great service to the industry that everyone involved provides. These are all volunteers. They’re doing it for the betterment of the industry, so hats off to them.
If you’re a person reading this and you’ve got juniors working for you, and you get word that one of the associations is having a tour day like this, do what it takes to get those younger people into these factories and warehouses. It’s going to open their eyes and get them excited about the fastener industry, which is what we need, likewise with the NFDA.
For this webinar, at the peak, there were north of eighty people on this call. Chris Donnell was leading up. He did a roundup of the logistics situation, but then zeroed in on the tariffs. We’re recording this on the twentieth. It was not long ago that these 232 updates were dropped on the industry. According to what I learned, the net effect of this is that material coming in from China is going to be subject to a 60% effective tariff rate payable by the importer of record.
There are lots of details on this and lots of ambiguity. People are scratching their heads, wondering if this is going to come to pass. It looks like it is, but there are so many questions, especially with the derivative products that contain fasteners. Steel and aluminum are subject to their own tariffs as well. That’s a whole other side of this. Chris did a comprehensive job of discussing it, but there are a lot of details. I’m sure we’ll be touching on this during upcoming episodes of the show, but that’s all we’re going to touch on here. Thanks to the NFDA for getting on that so quickly.
One other thing. The Fastener Fair USA is coming at us. That’s May 28th and 29th, 2025, in Nashville this time. Get out to FastenerFairUSA.com. Registration is open. Make sure you get in on that. You could also grab a booth if you’re still looking. I talked to Blanca in the wake of some of the tariff news that came out, checking up on all that. She said no cancellations. They’re about 1,000 square feet up over in 2024, she said. What’s cool is the distributor attendance looks like it’s much higher than in ‘24. The Fastener Fair ‘25 is shaping up very nicely.
If you check out episode 209 of the show, which everybody should, it’s all about the background and little-known trivia surrounding the Skidmore-Wilhelm testing device. The big shot over there, John O’Brien, and Carmen Vertullo are locked in to do some show floor demos of a Skidmore. They’ve got a time slot for that.
Also, over at the Carver Labs booth, John and Carmen will be hanging out all day. I’m sure they’ll have at least one of those Skidmores. That is one more reason to check out the Fastener Fair USA. Thanks, Blanca, for setting that up. Thanks again to you for tuning into the show. Brian will be with us on the other side of this break, but first, we’re going to hear from Will Snyder with WTC. We’ll take care of some business here and be right back to put a wrench in this one.
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Microsoft IT Security
Lots of people in the fastener world are using Microsoft Cloud products, Outlook, and the whole thing. We shifted over to that, too. I had some questions, so I knew who to call. That’s Will over at WTC – Managed IT Services. You brought up one very interesting fact that the audience would find very interesting. It has to do with the way that you set up your group and the global admin for the whole thing. It’s a security issue. Could you redux that for everybody?
What we’ve seen happen a lot is especially when companies start out small and they set up their Microsoft account, maybe they’ve set it up on their personal credit card, or they have 2 or 3 users. They set it up, and it’s like, “Let me see how fast I can set it up and get it going.” What you don’t realize is that the first person who sets up that Microsoft account is the global admin, who has full access to what we call your Microsoft tenant. If we say that it’s Eric, Eric would have an email address associated with that new name that he created with his domain. That global admin is tied to his name and email address.
In the case of Eric or a business owner, the whole point is that that person who is out in the email world is more likely to get phished or somebody to try and get through their account, especially if they are executives in the company. Once their credentials get compromised, they have full access to the Microsoft tenant. We see that a lot in the clients that we take on. That’s the first thing we change. The thing is, the solution is free and easy.
The thing that you want to do is create a user like Eric.admin, and then you don’t assign a license to it. It doesn’t cost you anything to create a user in 365 that is a non-licensed user. You don’t assign a Microsoft license to it, so it doesn’t cost anything. The only time you use it is if you need to log in to Microsoft and add a user, delete a user, or change credentials. You wouldn’t use your normal Eric@ email. You would use the Eric.admin to sign in and make those changes. It doesn’t matter if your email gets compromised. It doesn’t compromise your whole Microsoft tenant.
It makes a lot of sense. How do you go about checking this, in case you don’t know how you were first set up?
First of all, log in to your Microsoft 365 account. You can Google Office 365, and there’ll be a login that comes up. You log in with your email and your password. If you are a global admin, you’ll usually see a box along the left-hand side. It’s grayish brownish. It’ll say Admin with a little gear on it. There’s a column that says Users. You click on that, and you’ll be able to see all the users that you’ve created.
In each one of the users, it tells you their security level. What you’re looking for are the ones that say Global Administrator. In that scenario, if you find that it is you or someone key in your company, then you do Add New User. You type in a username that is not associated with an email. We usually like to use .admin, but it could be anything you want. Once you’ve created the user, you go into that user and then assign it as a global admin. Once it’s assigned as the global admin, then you can go back and take Global Admin off of your account.
What you have to do is you have to then log in as that user because you can’t delete yourself as a global admin if you’re logged in as that user. You then have to log in as that user. Make sure it works. Make sure it shows up as Global Admin, and then change the credentials on your account or anybody else’s account that has a global admin.
A lot of guys reading this have IT people, but there are also a lot of small shops, and they do their own stuff. It is very important that they know how to do this and check on it. You pointed out to me the voice of experience. You’ve been at this a long time. You said, “Get it set up now while you’re still small because you’re going to grow, and you’ll probably forget.” That’s when trouble happens, right?
Exactly. There are a lot of solutions like this out there that don’t take a lot of money. They are small, little tweaks to your organization or putting the right product in place that are almost non-existent from a cost standpoint. It’s that people aren’t aware. Talk to your IT people. Most people know how to get ahold of me. We’ll happily have a conversation. We don’t charge for a consultation. Make sure you’re taken care of. Especially if you’re a small company, the effect of having a ransomware phishing attack can be very catastrophic to your company.
There are many solutions that don’t require much money. They’re small tweaks to your organization or the right product choices that cost almost nothing. The problem is, people just aren’t aware. Share on XI’m glad I picked up the phone and called you, Will Snyder of WTC – Managed IT services. A lot of people in the fastener industry use you and know you. I appreciate you being here.
Thank you.
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I wish Will was here, Bri, because I have yet another OneDrive question. I’m trying to share a folder with Sam here, and I can’t figure out how to do it.
I failed at that, too.
Nothing like trying to learn some new software to make you feel like a real idiot.
I know. Kids do it all day, every day.
Argonne National Laboratory Story
In the last episode, we teased that this was going to be an episode dedicated to you, Bri, although we’re going to shift over to Carmen here in a second. He’s got an extended Fastener Training Minute. It’s more of a Training Minute Plus. This time, let’s take a minute and lay one of these stories on us. We were talking before we started recording. You and Lynn were gallivanting, as you wanted to do. You were hanging out at this art expo. Was it an art expo, or were you at an exhibition or a fundraiser?
It was a fundraiser at the College of DuPage. They’re trying to get people to help them bring a very big collection of Japanese art over from Italy. The idea was that there were a couple of very special Japanese artworks. One of them is very famous. It’s like a big wave breaking on a boat. We were all sitting at tables with six people. When people got up to leave, we started talking to the guy who was sitting next to Lynn.
Somehow, the subject of retirement came up, and Lynn said, “I retired the other day. Everything’s lovely.” He said, “I retired 46 years ago.” I looked at her. I said, “How old are you? 130?” He said, “No, I decided to retire early.” I said, “What on earth did you retire from? What were you doing?” He said, “I was working at Argonne Labs.”
Argonne National Laboratory. That’s in Lamont, which is right down the street from you guys. It’s a very important national research facility, right?
Yeah. It’s a Department of Defense facility and has been since 1941 or something. Argonne Labs is a forest. In the very middle of it is this huge research facility that no one can see. You’ve got to drive through a mile of forest to get to it, by design, with a big chain link fence all the way around the forest. You can’t even get near the place.
When the Manhattan Project started, it all started at the University of Chicago. The first nuclear pile reactor was built under the tennis courts. When they had their first success, and Enrico Fermi was the guy who was in charge of it, they had to move because they couldn’t have all these suited people coming in government cars to this one building.
They had to keep it under the radar.
They were having terrible trouble. The Army was in control of it. The Army was driven crazy. Enrico Fermi said, “There’s a place I know I go riding my horses. It’s way out in the middle of a forest.” They said, “We’ll go there.” They dismantled everything, including the nuclear pile from Chicago and all its thousands of bloody big graphite blocks. They took them out to Lamont, cleared a bit of the middle of the forest, and built this new research facility there, where they could keep control of it and house everybody. It has been there ever since.
That’s where Enrico Fermi developed the whole means of concentrating uranium using centrifuges. They rebuilt four separate reactors there as well, most of which are all decommissioned. The original one, which was made out of carbon bricks, can still be found there. That’s where all of the nuclear-powered generators were designed. Westinghouse may have built them, but they all came from these facilities. They do everything else. They’ve got metallurgy things. You can’t have a reactor unless you have bolts holding it together. That’s what he was doing.
A lot of fasteners there.
I know.
Super alloys, I would probably imagine.
All sorts of things. I happened to accidentally meet the lady who was in charge of designing them. She was an older lady, but probably not as old as me.
She was also interested in Japanese art?
No, she told me the whole story of Chernobyl. Chernobyl was built on stolen plans of the original reactor, but they forgot to steal the one important point, which they found out at Argonne. That’s why they’re never built anymore. You can’t move the control rods quickly because it makes the whole thing unstable, which is exactly what went wrong at Chernobyl. That’s why it was built out of carbon blocks, too. It was a design from 1941.
Chernobyl was built using stolen plans of the original reactor, but they failed to steal one crucial detail — the one discovered at Argonne. Share on XThat was the sticks back in that era. I know a little something about Argonne because one of my great fishing buddies is a senior engineer there and has been for many years since he got out of grad school. Argonne is also known for the Advanced Photon Accelerator, which is a giant particle ring. They zoom these particles around at nine times the speed of light, crash them into each other, and do all kinds of interesting experiments. It’s a national research facility that is also going deep into advanced AI and quantum computing as a result of all that science.
It has the biggest and most powerful supercomputer in the world at the moment, called Aurora.
It’s quietly there in that forest. It’s built up around the area, but they still have the forest there. I have to break in and tell a little lowbrow. I have a quick story on this one. It’s like getting into Fort Knox there. You need all kinds of clearance and everything. You have to have a pass to get in. At least this is the way it was years ago.
It’s still that way.
My buddy and I were planning a fishing trip coming up. We had our waders, and they were all full of holes. He had his own lab there. We threw our waders in the back of his truck. He was like, “Come on. Let’s go to my lab. We’ll figure out why they’re leaking.” We couldn’t get them fixed. We passed through security and everything, and we went to the lab. This was on a weekend. There are still a lot of people there.
We walked into this advanced scientific research facility with our waders and went into a government lab. I’m sure he’s not tuning in, so I can say this. We used those various apparatus to find out where these minute holes were. Needless to say, we had a dry fishing trip that year. We didn’t sneak any beers in, though.
No alcohol anywhere near there.
Fermilab is in Geneva. That’s only about 20 miles away, right?
You’re right. That’s got a much bigger ring there. That’s probably the biggest ring in the US.
That’s where they were doing all the neutrino research. This guy you met, the guy who retired for 46 years, what was he doing at Argonne? This has got to be the punchline.
What was he doing? Studying hydrogen embrittlement. I couldn’t believe it. I said, “What’s Argonne doing worrying about hydrogen embrittlement?” He says, “We have a big metallurgical department there because we have to develop things like the skins of bombs and reactors. It’s the Department of Defense.”
They’re doing all kinds of interesting metallurgy there. You can see a lot of it. You can go on special tours as long as you get one month ahead to get all the security clearances. It’s like driving through a big park. There are buildings here and buildings there. It’s a fascinating place. They work on batteries and all sorts of things. The Advanced Photon Source is where they developed the treatment for AIDS. It came out of that.
There are all kinds of applications. Years ago, my friend was involved in a study that was commissioned by the McDonald’s Corporation. They had them researching in minute detail the process of frying a potato. They were trying to come up with the optimized way to make their French fries. They spent all kinds of time and money trying to figure out exactly what it was like. They looked at it under very powerful microscopes.
They were clearly successful.
Those fries used to be good.
McDonald’s fries are still good.
They changed it, somehow.
They did, because they used to use a little bit of animal fat, which is where the real flavor came from, and then they had to stop doing that. They’re still good.
Argonne has an unbelievable number of things going on there, and apparently still does. You met a very interesting guy. You always come up with these. We’re going to save your other story for the end. It also involves a government facility, but in a completely different vein. We’ve got somebody who knows a lot about hydrogen embrittlement who hasn’t retired. I don’t think he’s ever going to think about retirement. Let’s hope he doesn’t because we need him. That’s Carmen Vertullo. We’re going to cut to a break, and we’ll be back right after that with his extended Fastener Training Minute. Thanks for sharing that with us. We’ll talk to you in a minute.
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This is Carmen Vertullo with your Fastener Training Minute coming to you from the Fastener Training Institute and from beautiful Spanaway, Washington, where I was treated to a Kraken-Penguins hockey game with my son. We had a great time. The Penguins lost 4 to 1. My son’s family are Kraken freako addict fans over the top, so it was good for them. I’m from Pittsburgh, so I’m a Penguins fan. They both suck, so no big deal.
Fastener Lot Traceability & Lab Testing
The Fastener Training Minute, here we go. This topic is one that I’m sure I’ve spoken on before, probably more than once, from several different angles. It has to do with the conjunction of fastener lot numbers and lot traceability, and the use of third-party laboratories. Those seem like two completely separate topics, but they have a significant amount of overlap that is very important.
If you use third-party laboratories, or any laboratories for that matter, you need to be aware of these things. Even if you don’t, you need to be aware of the things I’m going to tell you about the importance of fastener lot traceability. When we return, I’m going to talk to you about the conjunction or the confluence of fastener lot traceability and the use of third-party laboratories.
Welcome back, everybody. This is Carmen Vertulla with the Fastener Training Minute. We’re talking about fastener lot traceability and laboratory use. I call it a third-party laboratory, but in fact, it can be any laboratory. It could be your own in-house laboratory. It doesn’t necessarily have to be third-party. I’m going to start with the concept of lot traceability. Many industries rely on lot traceability to be the bearer of the integrity of their product. It’s not just fasteners, but food, pharmaceuticals, and cars. Anything that is a material or an ingredient has lot traceability.
This is the way this is done in the fastener industry. At the inception of the fastener, which is when it is created, or before it is even created, when the job goes into the shop to be made into the fastener factory, it will be assigned a lot number. That lot number will stay with that fastener forever, sometimes even up to the point of installation. If it happens to be a critical application, such as in an airplane, a submarine, or even some structural bolting applications, we will know what lot numbers went into what parts of the steel in that building.
These lot numbers go all over the place. If I make a lot of fasteners and there are 100,000 pieces in it, and maybe it’s coming from overseas, it’s going to go into multiple distribution outlets. From there, it’s going to go to some wholesalers or retailers to manufacturers. They’re all going to have this product. Theoretically, the lot number for that product will be on all of the paperwork that goes with that product, such as the sales tickets, the order pulling tickets in the warehouse, the shippers, the invoices, especially on the packaging for the fasteners. That is critical to be on the packaging for the fasteners.
One of the phenomena that has occurred is that we don’t always see the original manufacturer’s lot number on that package. We might see another number. That would be a number that is assigned by probably the reseller, the wholesaler, the importer, or whoever. As long as that number is traceable back to the original lot number, that’s okay.
Sometimes, we lose that information. The way this happens is, here’s my warehouse. I received 100,000 of these fasteners and a bunch of cases. Some of them, I’m going to package into hundreds. Some of them, I’m going to package into thousands. For some, maybe I’m going to leave in the original box or pallet. I’m going to split them into various locations throughout my warehouse or maybe some other warehouse. Each of those assigned packages will get a new number.
Sometimes, these numbers are called tag numbers, license plate numbers, or various other types of numbers, depending upon the type of ERP that your system may use. You have to be able to trace it back. The benefit of that is when there is a problem with the fastener and it must be dealt with, returned, trouble shot, or failure investigation, we can know the pedigree of that fastener and where it came from.
There are some other numbers that you’ve probably heard of that have to do with traceability. One of those is called the heat number. The heat number does not have anything to do with the fastener itself. It only has to do with the material from which the fastener was made. That is the heat lot of the steel, stainless steel, brass, aluminum, or even plastic. Whatever that fastener was made from, it will have a traceability number for that heat.
One heat can be used to provide many different lots of fasteners and many different types of fasteners. I might get a heat of wire that comes to me in my shop, and I’m going to make multiple different lots and types of fasteners from it. That same heat could have gone to other manufacturers, where they would make different things out of it. The heat number is an important part of the traceability of the fastener, but it is not necessarily traceable for the purpose of a lot number.
The same is true with other numbers. You might have a certification number, for example, for a heat treatment process, a plating process, or some other modification. Those are all important as well. They all feed into that final number, which is the manufacturer’s original lot number. That’s the one that we want to depend on the most. Theoretically, as we repackage this product, the original manufacturer’s lot number or one that we create that is traceable directly to it will be placed on the package and all of the important paperwork, so we can have good lot integrity.
What does this have to do with fastener testing? When we receive product at Carver Labs that needs to be tested, we have to make sure that our clients know that this test only applies to the product that we received. It doesn’t even apply to the lot. We generally say, “These results apply to the samples that you sent us.” If they do that right, those samples will show up in our lab in a package with the lot number on the package. If they fail to do that, then we have to call them up and say, “There’s a problem here. We do not have a good chain of custody of these fasteners because they’re technically evidenced.”
Like in a homicide investigation, if you pick up some evidence, you put that in a bag, and it gets a number. The police know how to maintain that chain of evidence, so they have good integrity that the evidence applies to the case they’re investigating. If we get a bag with no number on it and they call us up, or maybe we email them and they say, “Here’s the lot number,” we’ll say, “We’re going to write that on the bag.” Your cert is going to say that the lot number was received by email. That’s an important part of the information. We don’t know how well you did in terms of your lot integrity and your lot control on your end.
It’s very important that you keep the lot number on the specimen as far as you know it. These could be specimens that are part of a failure investigation that have already been broken or used. You may not be able to ascertain the lot number. Those are all very important things so that when they show up in the lab, we know that the product we’re testing pertains to the issue. Maybe it’s not even an issue. It may be third-party testing for the sake of checking on your vendors, like skip lot testing, for example.
If we receive a large box of fasteners and it has a lot number on it, and we’re only going to test a few of them, we will then indicate ‘Sampled by our lab from your box.’ If you send us a half a dozen or however many specimens you want us to test in a separate bag with a lot number on it, we will indicate ‘Sampled by the client’ so we know who sampled what and how it was done.
Years ago, when I was working for a distributor, we had brought in a twenty-foot truck that had sixteen pallets of drywall screws. I brought up all the apparatus I was going to need to inspect and test these on the tailgate of my truck before we let that truck blow South from Long Beach. I went to the front of the truck, took out my pocket knife, and cut a hole in the side of the box. I took out about ten, taped it back up, and then went to the far other corner of the truck. I cut the box open and took out ten more. The driver is looking at me like, “What the heck?”
I have no idea whether or not if I sampled them all from one box would be a decent sample or not, but I know that taking it from one end and the other is better than just taking it all from one box. I checked that all the boxes had the same lot number on them. To the extent I could check, they did. That was part of our requirement that they all come from one lot.
Those are some of the things you have to consider when you are doing subsequent laboratory testing, whether it be third-party or not. One other thing you have to be sure of is that the laboratory that is doing the work for you can do the work. In other words, they have the equipment, the expertise, and the accreditation, if an accreditation is necessary, which is not always necessary.
You also have to be careful that just because a laboratory has an accreditation doesn’t necessarily mean that the testing you are requiring them to do is within the scope of their accreditation. We have an accreditation. Our scope lists all the various types of tests that the accreditation body has reviewed us for to know that we’re competent to do those tests. Some companies care. Some don’t. Some are blindly foolish about it when they say, “You have to have an accreditation,” when it does not matter, or it may not even be possible to have an accreditation for a certain type of test.
Be careful. If your customer, for example, wants you to get something tested and you’re going to send it to a lab, do they care that that lab is accredited or not? You don’t want to end up having a test that’s not usable because of the accreditation situation. Does the laboratory that you’re using have a good method, such as the one I described previously, for making sure that the lot integrity is maintained or that the chain of custody is maintained?
What happens to those fasteners when they show up at the lab? We take pictures of the bag, for example, with the lot number on it. We record the time and date the package was received. If there are any anomalies with the package where maybe it’s broken open or some parts are missing, because you never know, we always record that information. That’s maintained throughout the process of testing. This sometimes is not so complicated because you’re only sending us 1 part, but we’ve had situations where we’ve got 10 different lots of the same exact part. We have to be careful to keep those various lots segregated and maintained for the purpose of traceability throughout the testing process.
All that being said, one of the most important things you can do is to maintain a good relationship with your testing laboratory or testing laboratories. Even if you don’t use them regularly, send some stuff out to get tested. Know your lab. Some labs will not take your product in unless you’ve already contacted them. Ask for a quote. You get the quote back, and then they’ll process your product. Same with some processors like plating shops or faster modification shops.
Know your lab so that when you need them, you already have a relationship, because most times when you need a lab, you don’t have time to waste. This could take days. Also, some labs have significant lead times. It can be anywhere from a few days to 2 weeks to 30 days, depending on the test. If you need it in a hurry and you want it badly, you’re going to get it bad because they’re going to charge you an expediting fee.
At Carver Labs, we made a decision not to charge expedite. There is no expedite at Carver Labs. That doesn’t mean you’re going to get your stuff immediately. We do everything we can as fast as we can. Almost everything gets out of our lab in a few days, but if someone needs something in a hurry, we’ll do our best to get it to them in a hurry. We do have a program called On-Call Consultant. Those clients go to the front of the line. We do a pretty good job of getting your fastener testing done expeditiously as you need it, without expediting it.
There are three things to take away from this. Lot integrity is very important. Fortunately, we have excellent ERP systems and a new thing called SmartCert, which is a great boon to fastener integrity and lot traceability. When we generate a test report or a certification of any type, it goes into the SmartCert Cloud, and we can access it with a QR code on the package. That’s awesome. That’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to our industry.
Maintain that lot traceability throughout your transaction. Once the customer has the product, it’s up to them whether they want to maintain traceability. If you’re doing something like VMI and you’re putting parts in bins, don’t intermingle those parts. There may be some parts loose in a bin. When you resupply that bin, you put the bag or box in the bin and let the customer be responsible for co-mingling them, which is not a good idea to do. The customer, client, or end user may or may not choose to maintain that traceability of that lot number into the product they’re manufacturing.
Finally, if you’re going to use a third-party lab, make sure you have a good sampling procedure that maintains lot traceability and chain of custody. I’ll throw one other thing at you as far as numbers are concerned. You may have heard of a number called SKU or Stock Keeping Unit. That is not a lot number. That’s simply a number that wholesalers, retailers, and everybody use to help maintain inventory and identify the product.
If you’re going to use a third-party lab, make sure you have a solid sampling procedure that maintains lot traceability and chain of custody. Share on XSometimes, that’ll come along with a barcode called a UPC code, which may not be the same thing necessarily, but oftentimes, it is. Do not think that because the product has a barcode on it with an SKU that that is a lot traceable mechanism. Most times, it is not. That’s about all I have to say on that topic. We’ve talked about lot traceability and the confluence of that with the use of third-party laboratories or even your own in-house laboratory. This has been Carmen Vertullo with the Fastener Training Minute. I hope you learned something. Thanks for reading.
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Brian, thinking back to that story you were telling earlier about the guy who worked at Argonne, he was working on hydrogen embrittlement all those years in that super fantastic, high-tech government facility. If those guys don’t know, do we ever stand a chance of solving it?
Others would say yes. A lot of people have been dealing with hydrogen embrittlement over the years. They know that this happens. How do you mitigate it?
My question was, will we ever get rid of it? If there’s a guy who’s going to get rid of it, maybe Carmen Vertullo is going to have a hand in it. He did a great job on the extended Fastener Training Minute. Do you think we should begin calling it the Fastener Training Hour?
It’s been more than a minute for a fairly long time.
We’re lucky to have it that way.
I know.
Thanks, Carm, for a great job. He was our main feature on this episode. You were the other feature, as we threatened. We’ve got that story that you told earlier. Plus, we’ll wrap up here in a minute with another one. I would also like to thank Will Snyder with WTC IT services. Reach out to those guys if you’ve got fastener IT problems. It seems like those guys are everywhere.
Everyone has IT problems.
They have problems, but a lot of people in the fastener industry reach out to WCL. That’s what I was saying. We’re so glad that you reached out for the show, everybody. Thank you for tuning in. We do appreciate that, and we appreciate it when you share the show with your friends and business associates. That’s how we grow the show mainly.
It could be through a barnstorming media campaign, but we haven’t managed that quite yet.
It’s coming, though, isn’t it? We’ll get our people on that. The title sponsors of the show are Star Stainless, “Right off the shelf, it’s Star,” Global Fasteners, “Quality the first time, Go Global,” and Brighton-Best International, “Tested and tried true, Brighton-Best. The show is also sponsored by Buckeye Fasteners, BTM Manufacturing, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, Fastener Technology International, INxSQL Software, J.Lanfranco, Solution Industries, Volt Industrial Plastics, and Würth Industry USA. We’re always happy to take your comments and questions at FTR@FullyThreaded.com. You can also catch us on LinkedIn. That is when Brian’s not hobnobbing around art expos and fundraisers.
I don’t willingly go to these things, incidentally.
FBI Tour Fiasco
I know. You get dragged in, but you sure do attend your share of them. That’s connected to this next story, too. You said, “I’m not going to be in the office much next week.” Sure enough, you weren’t. You and Lynn went off to Washington.
It was for one particular reason. After waiting for two years, we’ve been permitted to get a tour of the FBI.
You went to Washington, DC, to take a tour of the FBI building.
That’s right. The J. Edgar Hoover building.
What inspired this?
We’ve been watching various FBI shows on TV over the years. The ones that are on are all set in New York and that sort of thing. There used to be a thing called Criminal Minds, which was set in the main FBI building. You can’t walk in. You have to apply through your local senator. She recommends you. You’ve got to send them all sorts of stuff. They do very extensive background checks, much more so than getting into the DOD, I might say. If you’re lucky, a year or two years later, they finally give you a date. We got our date.
I knew something was up because you texted me Tuesday night. You said, “Everything is shutting down over here. We can’t get anything to eat.” The bad weather was coming or something, and then I didn’t hear much from you.
What happened was that it threatened to snow. Apparently, Washington, DC, becomes dyslexic when there’s a snowpack because they don’t have any snowplows. The federal building started closing at 1:00 on Tuesday, even though it didn’t snow until 9:00 at night. Everything shut down. It had snowed an inch by about 7:00 or 8:00.
No big deal.
You couldn’t get out of your hotel. Nothing was around. We thought, “In the morning, this will be okay. It stopped snowing. There is a bit of snow in the streets, but they’re pretty empty.” All federal buildings except the Senate and the House were closed because it was a day after it snowed, including the FBI. It was the stupidest thing. With the people we met, we were like, “You need to come work in Chicago. It snows, and things still keep working.” He said, “I want Washington, DC.” It was crazy.
Disappointing.
It was, having waited so long.
What kind of lesson do you draw from that?
I don’t know who’s tuning in to the show.
It’s fastener distributors, mostly.
If you are someone planning to attack the US, wait until it snows in Washington, DC.
Bingo.
Nothing is working.
Not very confidence-inspiring.
It’s not at all. I couldn’t believe it. Maybe you can close when it’s snowing heavily. The day after, when the sun’s out, it’s still closed.
I’m glad you made it back. I’m sure you guys used the best of your time while you were out there and did some sightseeing and stuff. That’s what you guys always do. Welcome back. I’m glad you made it. Thanks for sharing your story, and thanks for being a guest on the show as well as a co-host.
It has been very good. Thank you for inviting me.
Thanks, everybody, for clicking in once again. We truly appreciate it. That’ll put this episode of Fo Redded radio in the can. We’ll be back pretty soon with more good stuff.
Nice stories from me, though.
You always find a way. Get out there and sell some screws. We’ll talk to you next time.
We will. Keep tuning in and tell all your friends.
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