New business brings needed technology and training to Dubois County

Rick Braun’s proclivity for pushing productivity may have started when he was digging ditches for his dad as a teen.

“My father owned a plumbing business, and I worked with him at a very early age,” Braun said. “I was a kid that wanted a backhoe or trencher instead of the shovel. I could get a lot more work done with a machine.”

At 15 years old, he was already comparing his own sweat-equity using a shovel to the return on investment of operating a lever on a piece of machinery.

“Maybe that’s when it all started,” he posited about his need to be at the forefront of manufacturing technology these days.

“I get very bored doing the same thing every day,” he said. “When it gets right down to it, I like solving problems, and I like it when it is a variety and different every day. This is a very fast-changing type of industry.”

From those early plumbing days, his need for enhancing a work environment and increasing efficiency has brought him to now owning a business that works with manufacturers to help them with their manufacturing needs. Braun opened two companies, Machine Solutions and Robotics Solutions, at 1110 Vine Street last fall. He held a grand opening at the new location that serves as a showroom as well as a training center earlier this month.

The 53-year-old grew up in Tell City, where he graduated from Tell City High School in 1983. He attended USI for a short time before transferring to Indiana State University to complete a bachelor’s degree in industrial technology. Before he graduated from college, Indiana Desk — these days known as Indiana Furniture — came knocking, and at 23, he had a job waiting for him in Jasper.

He worked for the company six years. During that time, he hit his stride regarding his interest in the impact technology has on manufacturing when he led the company’s construction of a new facility on County Road 100 South in 1991. Indiana Laminates was designed to be a state-of-the-art facility where the company made parts for its furniture.

“I got involved in studying technology, traveling all over the world, seeing a lot of operations over two years,” he explained about that process. “We purchased those machines and installed them when the building was done. They moved a whole floor from this archaic facility into a cutting-edge facility. It was the best thing around Dubois County at the time.”

When he left the company, he began selling equipment until breaking off to start his own machinery distribution company. In 2010, he started Machine Solutions in a home office in Jasper. The office acted as a central location for sales calls and administrative needs. He built the business up, hiring some techs and salespeople and continued expanding his customer base.

A few years later, he opened his first tech center in Peru, Ind., because he had two technicians located up there. It worked at first, and he expanded to a larger center, but he learned that he needed to move the tech center.

“Peru is kinda out there in the middle of nowhere and I knew I needed to be in Jasper,” he explained about the thought process at the time.

So last year he decided to bring everything to Jasper. He met with Todd Fromme, the building’s owner, to discuss options for moving Technology Solutions to Vine Street. It was a somewhat dilapidated building that needed renovations and updated infrastructure. After completing some of the work, they moved into the building in October.

“I should have started here,” Braun said. “In hindsight, we would have been a lot farther along here if I had opened here. But Peru allowed us to learn how to operate a facility like this.”

Interestingly, the building where his new business is located on Vine Street was an Indiana Furniture factory that was being used as a storage area when he joined the company.

“The first week on the job at Indiana Furniture, I toured this building,” Braun said motioning around the room.

The 1110 Vine Street location in Jasper has been a good move so far. Manufacturers from four states came in for the grand opening. More than a 100 representatives from dozens of manufacturers toured the facility and were able to operate the more than dozen machines on display during the event.

The new location serves several purposes for local manufacturers responding to a tight labor market as well as tighter production times.

Braun sells the most technologically advanced wood manufacturing machinery available.

“Industry 4.0 is upon us now and a large part of that is IoT, the internet of things,” Braun explained.

The machinery he carries is connected to a central server designed to collect the data for those machines. The companies can also collect the data and monitor the machines as they run.

At its base, the connection provides manufacturers with easy record-keeping regarding production as well as planning for scheduling maintenance and the different needs for those machines.

“The data will tell them that the machine sat idle for 58 minutes during a shift waiting on the operator to put something in it,” he said. “It will break it down, tell the operator that it needs preventive maintenance and send it to your smartphone.”

Where it becomes extremely useful is when the data coming into the server from the machine predicts breakdowns. If a widget on a machine isn’t running properly but the machine is still operational, the company has time to order the part and repair the machine before it actually breaks the entire operation down.

Reducing downtime due to breakage means more production.

“Predictive maintenance is a very big deal,” he said.

Another important aspect of this is the ability for a technician with Braun’s company or the manufacturer of the machinery to interface with the machinery in the local factory.

“I or a technician from North Carolina can take over a machine and run it remotely,” he explained.

This allows remote troubleshooting.

Robotics is another part of that Industry 4.0 and not only is it driven by the need for faster, more efficient manufacturing processes, but also by the lack of human power to handle the workload at local manufacturers.

“We are in a crisis, they have no choice,” Braun said. “They may have 10 percent forecasted in growth this year. They will need to hire a few people to keep up with that but there is nobody out there.”

This is leading local manufacturers to ring up Braun to get quotes on new machines to cover that growth.

“Traditionally, anytime they buy any kind of machine, manufacturers estimate the cost to continue doing business they way they currently are compared to the anticipated costs to do it with a new machine. With that they can say that within two to two-and-a-half years it can be paid off,” he explained. “You can’t apply that anymore because there is no labor. There are no human beings to show up.”

According to Braun, robots aren’t replacing these companies’ employees as much as they are allowing companies to shift employees into new roles as these other needs are met.

The center also serves as a location for companies to send people to view and operate new machinery. Being in the backyard of his major customers and market is a boon for local manufacturers who in the past have had to send people across the country or even to Europe to personally see and use new Industry 4.0 machinery.

Now, they are five minutes from the machinery and they can ensure a piece of equipment will be something to further enhance their company’s value and longevity.

On top of that, Braun’s business is also an Industry 4.0 learning center.

“It is truly a learning center,” Braun explained. “We can bring in people, new employees, and they can train without the companies interrupting their production schedule.”

As a problem solver, Braun wants to be able to bring solutions to the local manufacturers. His business fits a need in the area and it’s been a good move so far and a welcome addition to the local economy.

“The goal for me is to always have some new for them to see,” Braun said. “I want people to get used to saying, ‘he’s up to something, we better go see what he’s up to because it’s probably something we don’t know about.’ It’s going to be a constant evolution of machine technology and robotics.”

Braun is joined by his wife Jo who, according to Braun, does everything he can’t get to and is his office manager. The company also has eight employees but plans on continuing to grow.

The company’s website is www.machinesolutionsllc.com and telephone is 812-639-3527.