There’s an ancient proverb that goes something like: He who knows not and knows not that he knows not, is a fool, shun him; he who knows not and knows that he knows not, he is a child, teach him; he who knows, and knows not that he knows, he is asleep, wake him; finally, he who knows and knows that he knows, is wise, follow him.

In 1995, when his father asked him to join S&H Machine, Inc., a Burbank, CA machining job shop, David Fisher, just out of college, knew almost nothing about machine shops.

“I guess I fell into the category of the one who didn’t know, but knew he didn’t know,” he says. “When it came to machining, about the only thing I knew was that I wasn’t overly excited about going into the business. I got a BA in Speech Communication in college, and my specialty was business. I had worked for my dad off and on as a kid doing odd jobs, but I really never liked it.”

But when Fisher’s father, Kenneth Fisher, called suddenly and asked him to join him in the business, Fisher got worried.

“My initial response was that there was something wrong with his health,” Fisher says. “I mean, why would my dad call me out of the blue and ask me to come to work for him? I figured something had to be wrong.”

As it turned out, the call had nothing to do with Kenneth Fisher’s health.

“He had been running the company for thirty-five years, and he just wanted to start backing out,” Fisher says. “The company had a really good reputation, and it had good employees and good customers, but he knew that if it was to survive, it had to be modernized. He said, ‘I’ve worked too hard over the years to see the company die. I want you to take over and fix it. I want you to keep it alive.’”

Fisher was hesitant about turning the job shop into a career.

Five-Year Try

“At that time I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, so I told Dad I’d give it five years to see how I liked it,” Fisher recalls. “But I wanted to handle the business end, not go into the shop, and Dad agreed. He felt that the business needed younger blood with fresh ideas and the ability to adapt and take the company into the future.”

It didn’t take 5 years for Fisher to decide, however.

“Within a year or so, I realized it was a no brainer,” he says. “I realized this because my Dad gave me the control to do what I felt needed to be done. I wanted the ability to make a difference, to change things for the better, and I have. I wanted to create an environment that was not the standard dirty, oily, smoky machine shop. I wanted a place that was organized, well lit, clean, where employees would enjoy working. If you look at our before and after photos, the change is amazing.”

Backed Out Slowly

Unlike many fathers who have built businesses and can’t let go, Kenneth Fisher gave his son the lattitude he needed to grow.

“Dad didn’t jump in every time he didn’t agree with what I wanted to do,” Fisher says. “Instead, if I needed help, he was there to back me. He was smart enough to know that, even though he was an experienced machinist who knew how to run a job shop, he really didn’t have the know-how to take us into the future. When I came in, we were still using typewriters in the office, no computers. We had some CNCs in the shop, but they were pretty old. Until I agreed to come on board, Dad didn’t know who was going to take over, so he had hesitated about investing too much in the business.”

After a year, Kenneth Fisher saw that his son was, in fact, level headed and was doing a good job.

“After the first year, Dad started taking Fridays off,” Fisher says. “Then after the second year, he took off Thursdays and Fridays. Today he comes in every other week. Dad can fix anything, so his favorite thing to do is fix our machines. Anything that's broken. Of course, he’s still available if I need advice, and we spend quite a bit of time discussing the business, but I run it now.”

Business Transformation

During the past 13 years, Fisher unquestionably lived up to his father’s expectations.
“Dad virtually gave me carte blanche to modernize the shop,” he says, “so I did. For one thing, from the day I took over, we’ve bought about one new CNC machine a year, fourteen so far since I arrived, so we now have a shop full of very advanced machining equipment. Dad started out long ago buying Mori Seiki equipment, and I’ve basically continued that policy. Though we have other brands of equipment, we’re mostly a Mori Seiki shop. We have Mori Seiki CNC lathes, Mori Seiki Mills, and our latest machine is a Mori Seiki NV5000 VMC with a Tsudakoma Rotary. For years we have dealt with Tony Burns at Ellison Technologies.”

Fisher has significantly increased the size of the company, as well.

“When I started we had 10 employees working in 4300 square feet,” he says. “Today we’re in 17,000 square feet in four adjoining buildings. We have thirty-eight employees and our productivity is very high. We have an excellent quality system, and we’re AS9100 and ISO9001 registered. We have developed our own proprietary shop control software, and we have really stabilized the company by diversifying our capabilities. We’ve always been an aerospace shop, but now we perform a lot of different kinds of work for our customers, including some assembly. Our long-term goal is to become a world-class company that is recognized in our industry for unmatched quality, productivity and innovation.”

Do-it-yourself Peer Group

Even though he is proud of his accomplishments at S&H Machine, Fisher puts formation in April 2004 of the Southern California Manufacturing Group at the top of his list of achiements.

“We were doing okay on our own,” he says, “but I was still nagged by self doubt. I realized that my experience in this industry was limited to the four walls at S&H, and my dad’s experience, while extensive in machining and engineering, was also limited to our own shop. As the business grew, I really felt the need to have someone to talk to.”

Fisher learned about peer groups from an uncle.

“We were at a party for a family member,” he says, “and my uncle, who owned a printing business, mentioned that he had belonged to a peer group for nearly fifteen years. He said, ‘When you’re in business by yourself, especially a small company, you don't have all the answers, and you don’t necessarily know you’re doing the right thing, but when you’re in a peer group, you have others to talk to, to learn from, to compare.’ I knew instantly that’s what I needed, too, a machine-shop peer group, which could give me lots of information I didn’t have from my own experience.”

To implement his idea, Fisher turned to Tony Burns at Ellison for help.

“I told Tony about the idea, and he agreed to help,” he says. “I asked him to recommend a group of small machine shops that were not direct competitors, but that he felt were going places, companies that were investing in equipment and that were modernizing their companies. I also wanted nice people, too, who could form a compatible group. Tony came up with a list and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Fisher phoned each of the shops on the list, and if they seemed interested, he invited them to his first meeting. If they expressed doubt, they weren’t invited.

“A peer group has to be made up of people who are anxious to share what they know and to learn from each other,” he says. “Once we got started, we toured each other’s shops, saw what everyone was doing and made suggestions for improvement. Today we have seven members in our group, and it’s really fantastic. We have no business secrets from each other. We have hired a moderator who handles our meetings, which are held twice a month. When we started, most of us weren’t AS9100 certified. Now we are. One of our members was going lean, and he hounded us until we all started going lean, too. We discuss things like employee benefits, the best hiring practices, you name it. If any of us has a technical problem he can’t solve, we call on the other members and get their inputs. I once told the group that I was about to buy a new machine to handle a difficult part. They looked at the part, and convinced me that I was buying the wrong machine, and they were right. I made a different decision, and it has worked out wonderfully. That decision alone made the group worth the effort.”

Group Now Sets Standards

Fisher says his peer group now sets some pretty high standards for continued membership and potential new members. The group is expected to meet certain minimum performance standards.

“To even be considered, new members have to do things like join the Supplier Excellence Alliance,” he says. “We’re all members of SEA now. We require members to become AS9100 certified and to implement Net-Inspect in his shop, which is a data collection, first-article, online software that we all use. The amazing thing is, as busy as we all are, we have not had one drop out since the beginning. Over the years we have all become friends.”

In spite of the friendships, the peer group is not a social club, however. Instead it is about inciting the members to take actions designed to make them more competitive and better companies.

“A lot of this is about friendly competition and personal pride,” Fisher explains. “We all help each other, but we don’t want to fall too far behind our peers either. This makes us all try harder to be better, so we’re not embarrassed by not coming up to standard. It’s a good kind of competition.”

What is the biggest advantage of having a peer group?

“When you have a group of compatible people in the same business willing to share, you really multiply your knowledge by that number,” Fisher says. “The bottom line is you no longer feel alone.”

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