Embracing Change in Engineering – Mark Lugowski, Project Manager at HMFT Inc.

Catalyzing change within a company is no easy task, but Mark Lugowski has successfully implemented new systems and processes in several organizations. He improves efficiency and drives innovation in engineering projects by examining how other industries adopt new technologies. As a project manager at HMFT, a provider of industrial-grade pumps, valves, filters, and equipment, Mark leads the value-add engineering department, creating custom fluid handling solutions for different industries including oil and gas, automotive, and hydropower.

In this episode, Mark shares his insights with host Jon Hirschtick on integrating cloud-based platforms like Asana and Slack, and AI tools like Microsoft Copilot and Rize (a time-tracking software) to enhance productivity, responsibility, and accountability within project teams. He explains strategic change management, gradual implementation, and clear communication to reduce change fatigue and understand its benefits.

Transcript

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- Welcome to the "Masters of Engineering" podcast, episode 30. Cool products, the people who develop them, and how they do it. I'm your host, Jon Hirschtick. I build CAD and PDM software as my career. The best part of what I do is meeting the coolest product developers and engineers on the planet, and in my podcast, you get to meet them, too. So today, want to welcome this great guest, Mark Lugowski. He's a change agent. He's an expert in cutting edge technologies and a real thought leader in how to manage projects and use tools. Mark, welcome to the podcast.- Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here and an honor to be on this podcast, so thank you.- Can you tell us what do you do at HMFT? What does the company do. and what do you do there?- Yep, so HMFT is predominantly a distributor of fluid handling equipment. So we service a lot of industries from a lot of the hydro of the various provinces to oil and gas. We do liquid finishing, both in automotive and non-automotive applications. We do a lot of two component and more complex adhesives and stuff like that in the automotive industry, so all over the place. And my role within that is both as a project manager as well as creating our value add engineering department, if you will. Most of our solutions are custom for the clients, so we don't do anything super crazy and out of the ordinary, if you will, but we do do things like pump motor sets for the oil and gas industry. So we're designing skids. There's a few standards that we follow. There are some more demanding applications in terms of low temperature and things like that. We also do gear spray systems. We do lubrication solutions for both plants and for vehicles.- Are people looking for more engineering? Is there more value engineering or less as a trend versus a year, two, three ago in your customers?- Definitely more and definitely it is a mix of engineering, not only mechanical, I'm a mechanical engineer, but we are definitely moving towards the integration of both electrical, computer, and material systems. So the automotive industry is a perfect example. As things like EV vehicles get more and more complex, the solutions that the suppliers are providing are very complex, and it's not like the customer can just go and purchase an item off of the shelf. You need an entire team to tailor the solution for the application, understand the requirements, and it's a very cross-disciplinary solution and problem now.- So you're doing more value engineering over time. By the way, that's what I was expecting based on, you know, thinking about the world in general, but it's interesting for you to confirm that. So the value engineering is becoming a bigger part of your value add. Can you give us an example or two of a typical project, not looking for anything confidential, just so that we could use as a context to talk about here?- Yep, so let's say that there's a new regulation or something like that that requires the reduction of VOCs or something like that, and then the customer identifies that internally. That is something that they have to do. They might approach HMFT, and we'll start talking with them how they can accomplish that, whether that's through electrostatics, more efficient to component mixing solutions, proportioning, and that conversation will unfold as we begin to understand the requirements of the customer, and we slowly tailor that solution to them, work with them to develop a business case if required, and, at some point, the project is kind of handed off to our team and we begin.- And you said reduce VOCs. Can you just elaborate on what, define that?- Volatile organic compounds. So for a lot of spray applications that we work with in liquid finishing-- Yes, the paints that are used are not the safest.- Yeah, so something like painting, you know, a painting application and there's too much, you're trying to get less, it's an environmental and worker safety concern. Is that--- Yeah, both environmental and worker safety, yes.- Yeah, which is huge today, right? Because we all know that environmental regulations are a growing part of I think most of our, I can't imagine anyone in our audience doesn't have environmental aspects that are creeping into their-- creeping and growing as part of their product design. So you're collaborating with the customer. It's not like they send you something and you respond six months later. You're having a dialogue with them, helping them define the need?- Absolutely. I think that's essential in order to really truly understand the requirements of a customer'cause a customer might say they want A, but they might have actually hopped to the conclusion themselves, and you really want to understand that. So when you provide the solution, you're actually providing the value that the customer wants, not necessarily the solution they think they want, yes.- I think this is so representative of a modern relationship with suppliers. What about technology? So how are you communicating with the customer? What tools do you use, whether software or other tools?- Yep, so email, of course. We do do Teams meetings as well. We also are moving towards more project management software. Internally, we do use Asana. We do have our ERP system, NetSuite, and NetSuite does have project capabilities as well, which we use for generating Gantt charts and just tracking project billing and all that kind of stuff. And we do communicate with the customer through drawings, but internally, we do use Onshape's ability to share files and interact and comment directly in there, which is great. Very convenient, and a great way to get feedback from-- I'm a big fan of engaging the people who are actually producing our products so the next time we do it, it's better. We do a lot of lessons learned. It's very key to improving our process is there are lessons learned.- Okay, and so you're using Onshape for CAD internally, not necessarily externally yet with customers,- I think we're--- more internally.- Yes, yeah. I think at this point, as the team is growing and we're developing the confidence, I guess, of doing it internally and establishing the processes definitely in the future looking to share. Occasionally we have, but it's just not really become standard procedure at this point.- So back to Asana for a moment. I find that really cool because, as you may know, Asana is not yet, I wouldn't say it's totally well known in design and manufacturing as much as I-- Sure, we're definitely using it from a task management perspective. It definitely does not compare with something like Projects or something where you have a lot more control over leads, lags, these kind of things. So it's more of a, yeah, definitely more of a task management thing.- So you use it internally or also customers get into it?- Internally for task management, yes.- Internally for task management, and it's a cloud native solution, right?- Yes, yes.- So was that a big factor in your choice of it and use of it internally?- Yes. I'm always a bit of a hybrid. Either I'm on site with a customer or I'm in the office or I'm working from home. So for me, cloud-based applications are definitely a winner. In fact, I think I started Asana about the same time I started playing around with Onshape, which would've been back at my previous company back in 2015 or something like that where I was traveling a lot to the US, and having these kind of tools available was great.- I find a correlation between tools like Asana, Slack, Airtable, Smartsheet, these kinds of things, and companies that are more agile process users, higher iteration loops, faster moving, like you said, you know, you need it yesterday. Would you agree with that, like that that goes hand in hand with agile process?- Yeah, no, I agree 100%. I think it's almost essential when there are people who I guess are reluctant to switch to Teams or kind of stuck to email, and when you're interacting with individuals who use tools like Slack, Teams, or any kind of messaging software, or whether it's Notion, Asana, any of these online task trackers, I think productivity, responsibility, accountability, all these things are crystal clear. It just works great.- Yeah. I feel that way. So you brought Asana in to HMFT. Were you the person who did?- Yep.- And was there resistance? You know, did you find any challenges when you bring it in internally or to the extent you introduced them with customers? Are people reluctant or?- So with Asana, we do use it only within the project team. So there wasn't that much resistance, and I would say that's probably because the demographic, the age group is a little bit younger on the engineering team.- Ah. Ah, yeah.- But I do know that, for example, when we were rolling out the new ERP system, and that's about when I joined HMFT, change like that is, there's always resistance to change like that. And I think approaching change management within our organization is very important, especially from the perspective of not overdoing it. A, everyone has to understand why you're doing it so that they can understand their benefits that they're going to have, but change fatigue is definitely a thing.- Change fatigue. So you're saying you've got to kind of, maybe I'll use the word titrate in your change, so it's not like, "Oh, I'm changing everything," and you're conscious of that as a, you're a change leader in the team, right? And so you're saying don't do it all at once.- Absolutely, yes.- Don't shock the system.- But AI is one of those things where it's presenting this opportunity, you know? And everyone wants to hop on board, but I think, just thinking about it and how can we use this to our advantage without just introducing something for the sake of introducing it kind of thing.- So I have to ask you, since you mentioned AI, are you using any AI tools today that, again, that you can talk about or care to talk about openly on the podcast?- Yeah, so I've been testing Copilot, and I'm waiting for-- from Microsoft-- and I'm very interested to test it out as a guinea pig from a meeting perspective. So I like the fact that it integrates within Office 365 so that way you can take notes automatically. You can ask it whether your meeting's on track, this kind of application, the idea of summarizing documents and potentially rephrasing them for a specific target audience, I think, is very important. I think the key benefits there are the use of it for kind of lowering the admin work that is required. So I also tested out a AI-based time tracking software. So personally, I have always been interested in time tracking, but at the same time, it's always proved to be more of a hassle than it is a benefit, but in this case, this app, and I think the app was called Rize, was really good. It actually just tracks- Oh wow.- whichever tabs are open. If you have meetings, it integrates there, so it knows. It actually probably helps me for a lot of people who are more, I guess, workaholics, if you will, to actually take breaks, get away from the computer or walk around.- I'm learning already here because I have not heard of Rize, so this looks interesting here. So that is R-I-Z-E.io for those who are interested. And so you're staying on top of tools. So you're using AI, so the tools you're using, and this, I think, is a great message to product developers out there. What I'm hearing from you is you mentioned AI tools, you mentioned what I'll call general office professional type AI tools, not aimed at the engineering community, but they can make a big difference for engineering companies, you're saying, because the ones you mentioned, Microsoft Rize, these are not specific to engineering industrial companies, but it still can be very useful. Are there any AI applications that you're using yet that you'd say are more engineering specific?- At this point, no. I would say no, but at this point, I'm really focused, as especially as I'm moving more towards, I guess, the little bit away from engineering but more to the operations side of things is just identifying low hanging fruit. And so from a personal perspective, the amount of time I spend on email is more than I would like it to be, and so how can I-- That makes two of us. (laughs)- Yes. So it's like how can I improve that? How can I more better optimize my time? And I think a big part of identifying opportunities, even things like a software, is engaging all the time with other industries. So the software engineering and their agile project methodologies, you know, you can't just copy and paste it into a more manufacturing environment, but there are definitely tools that you can steal from there and apply to the manufacturing side of things. Same with- Great point.- like any new technology, additive manufacturing. You might not use additive manufacturing, but understanding how the process works, the difficulties that the industry's experiencing, where certain things might go in terms of trends. Same with automotive. What can we expect as the suppliers are reacting to the industry? What new products will they be offering us? How do we prepare as HMFT to be able to install these new more complex systems? Are we looking at chemical engineers? Are we looking at electrical engineers? Industry 4.0 is a big one. A mechanical engineer now I think is not only mechanical. I think the computer side of things is very important. Onshape is the perfect example. How do you use the API to integrate it with our ERP system? All these kind of opportunities are now just, not only are they presenting themselves, they're also very accessible because, in today's world, you just go on Google or chatGPT, whatever you want, you type in a question, you read a book, and now it's like "The Matrix." You have this new skill within five seconds, maybe not five seconds, but within a month, you can learn how to-- like a new coding language. It's pretty amazing the time we live in.- I love what you said about looking at the software world to learn ideas about the hardware world or what you really said was, that was an example, but you said looking at other industries, technologies for ideas on processing tools. And I think you're a shining example of that, you know, with the Asana, in particular these AI tools you're bringing in. You're not just looking at sort of the engineering tool set. You're looking at the world, and one more question. Give us a tip of something that's on your top of mind for what would be a technology that you think will be important if we come back in two or three years, and you'll say, "This is one on my mind, you know, that I'm thinking about" that may not be on the minds of our listeners or me. Could you give us a hot tip on something you think we should spend some time looking at that's on your mind?- I think there are quite a few. I think one of your previous guests from BC I think mentioned it, and I think edge devices and computing, not on the cloud but on the edge. I think at this point, microcontrollers are powerful enough that they can implement their own machine learning. So you can now deploy that into remote facilities in the middle of nowhere, and I think that is important. I think the continued growth of augmented reality. I know that Onshape is playing with that, which is great.- Oh yeah, I got my Apple Vision Pro right here. (laughs)- Exactly, and from my perspective, you know, you go into a customer's facility, and instead of showing them a drawing,'cause not everyone can read drawings, you show them,"This is what your solution will look like." I think it's either if it's that or within Unity or some other game engine, just importing 3D CAD assets.- A great tip. Edge computing and other guest of mine was Leigh Christie from MistyWest up in BC, right up in British Columbia. Great, he was such a cool guest, and he's kind of an expert on edge computing, embedded Bluetooth, things like that. And then what you mentioned about AR, you know, we're so excited, and what we are doing with it, as you may know, is with our Onshape Vision app. That's an app for Vision Pro, and it's live CAD data. So you don't have to export the files and bring them in, you know, when you're under tight deadline, and, you know, we're finding customers are really resonating with that. We've had a number of customers pretty excited. Mark, can't thank you enough for being a guest today. If you want to know more about HMFT, you can find it, HMFT.com. Mark, thank you again so much for taking the time to do this.- Thank you, sir.- And to our audience, that's it for today. See you all next time on Masters of Engineering.