MillTown Paper President Trent Duerr says his sales team spent 75 to 90% of their time on data entry tasks before he met Neenah native and Silicon Valley startup founder Marshall Kools and began automating its reject report with the AI technology offered by Kools’ company, Arzana.
On this week’s episode of NEW Manufacturing Insights, the official podcast of Insight Publications with the NEW Manufacturing Alliance, Kools and Duerr share the story of how Arzana has helped MillTown Paper and other Midwest manufacturers make “small, meaningful change” through thoughtful AI adoption.
Kools, who founded his company while a student at Stanford University, is proud to be fourth-generation Fox Valley, he tells co-hosts Kate Bruns and Ann Franz, and didn’t want to be part of the “brain drain” phenomenon. So Arzana now has offices in the Fox Valley and in Okoboji, Iowa, where it is closer to its customer base. And Duerr, who says he trusts the “person I trust least in Wisconsin more than the person I trust most on the coast,” became an enthusiastic customer. He adds that small- to mid-sized manufacturers don’t necessarily have the staffing and expertise on site to vet and manage automation and technology solutions, so working face-to-face with Kools has been a game-changer for MillTown.
“Now our people are doing things that are more fulfilling to them, things that help the business more,” Duerr says on this week’s podcast.
For more with Kools and Duerr, including what each of them consider their best leadership insights and their best practical advice for small- to mid-sized manufacturers, listen to Episode 132 on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the audio podcast platform of your choice.
All episodes of NEW Manufacturing Insights are sponsored by Stoke RGA. Learn more about how Stoke RGA is helping Midwest manufacturers at stokerga.com.
