my TRUE POSITION

Everybody wants more business. More purchase orders. More machines running. More revenue. But what happens when all that growth starts eating your cash and destroying your profitability? In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim Carr takes a hard look at one of manufacturing's most dangerous traps: growing revenue without growing profit. Drawing on more than five decades in precision manufacturing,...

Why do some family businesses survive for 50, 75, or even 100 years while others disappear almost as quickly as they were created? In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim Carr takes a hard look at the challenges of family-business ownership, leadership, and succession. As the second-generation owner of CARR Machine & Tool, founded by his father Richard in 1972, Jim shares lessons from more than f...

You quoted the part. You won the job. Your machining numbers look great. Then the finishing quote arrives — and suddenly your profit is disappearing. In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim Carr tackles one of the most overlooked estimating risks in precision manufacturing: guessing outside processing costs and lead times. From chem film, anodizing, and plating to heat treating, masking, inspecti...

What does a lifetime in manufacturing really mean? After being named the winner of the prestigious Legacy Craftsman Award at the SAMM's Awards, CARR Machine & Tool President Jim Carr reflects on more than five decades of family manufacturing history, the lessons passed down by his father Richard, and the responsibility of preparing a third generation of leadership. In this personal episode of My T...

Manufacturers track almost everything — sales, backlog, delivery, quality, scrap, margin, and cash. But are they tracking culture? In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim Carr talks about the value of anonymous employee surveys and why they can become one of the most important leadership tools inside a manufacturing company. At CARR Machine & Tool, employee surveys have become a way to identify t...

AI does not have to be complicated to be useful. In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim Carr talks about his recent experience using an AI Chrome browser extension that works inside the tools he already uses — Gmail, Google Suite, Sheets, QBO, HubSpot, ProShop ERP, and other browser-based business systems. The big realization: AI is no longer just a search box or a novelty tool. It is becoming a...

In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim Carr breaks down the hard truth about bad customers — the ones who fight price, push delivery, challenge quality, pay late, consume your team, clog your schedule, and still expect priority treatment. Jim explains why bad customers are not just a sales problem. They are an operational contaminant. They drain leadership bandwidth, hurt morale, pressure margin...

In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim breaks down exactly what he would do differently if he were starting from scratch in today's manufacturing environment. The old model was simple: buy a machine, chase work, quote cheap, work hard, and figure it out. But today, skill and hustle are not enough. Modern manufacturing requires systems, quality discipline, inspection capability, quoting accuracy,...

Sometimes the best sales strategy is not a new campaign, a new consultant, or a complicated marketing funnel. Sometimes it is calling people who already know you. In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim Carr shares a recent sales epiphany from CARR Machine & Tool: he started calling inactive customers, and the response was immediate. About 80 percent responded, and many said they were swamped and...

Quoting machined parts is one of the most important and misunderstood functions inside a machine shop. In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim Carr breaks down what really goes into building a disciplined quote — from material, finishing, tooling, outside services, hardware, scrap, shipping, planning, programming, setup, inspection, automation assumptions, DLH rates, overhead, and profit markup....

IMTS 2026 is coming back to Chicago, and Jim Carr believes manufacturing leaders should do more than just attend. They should bring their teams. In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim explains why IMTS is one of the most valuable team development opportunities in manufacturing. With more than 86,000 people, 1,800 exhibitors, 10 technology sectors, and over 1.2 million square feet of manufacturin...

Doing business with friends can be rewarding — but it can also get complicated fast. In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim Carr shares personal lessons from decades in manufacturing about the risks of mixing friendship with purchase orders, subcontracting, tooling, consulting, and supplier relationships. The hard truth: good people can still be bad business partners. Jim talks about why expecta...

Manufacturing has become the number-one industry targeted by cyberattackers, accounting for 27.7% of the incidents investigated by IBM X-Force in 2025. manufacturers such attractive targets? It comes down to production downtime, valuable customer intellectual property, aging technology and our position inside increasingly connected global supply chains. In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim Car...

A big backlog feels great — until you realize backlog doesn't ship itself. In this episode, I break down the hard reality behind today's aerospace and defense demand. The orders may be real. The opportunities may be real. But so are the constraints: labor, material, inspection, outside processing, cash flow, supplier delays, machine uptime, and leadership capacity. This is not a negative episode....

The government just suspended CMMC Phase II—and the reason goes far beyond cybersecurity. With defense inventories under replenishment pressure, aerospace backlogs at historic levels, and qualified manufacturing capacity already constrained, Washington finally recognized that six-figure certification costs and overwhelming documentation requirements were pushing capable small manufacturers out of...

Manufacturing owners love to say nobody wants to work overtime anymore. But maybe the better question is: why did we build businesses that depend on it? In this episode, I dig into the new overtime reality facing machine shops and manufacturers. The workforce has changed. People want their nights, weekends, and family time back. But customers still want shorter lead times, faster delivery, and fla...

Chicago has spent billions building the future of manufacturing and logistics — rail yards, airport cargo systems, automation, robotics, smart factories, and advanced equipment. But here's the hard truth: machines don't create capacity by themselves. People do. In this episode, I break down the workforce crisis hiding behind the automation boom. We don't just need more technology — we need the tec...

Most family businesses don't fail because they run out of money. They fail because they run out of leadership, communication, trust, and a real succession plan. In this episode, I break down why some family businesses survive for generations while others collapse the minute the founder steps away. We'll talk about entitlement, founder dependency, hard conversations, next-generation leadership, and...

What if the most valuable business lessons you'll ever learn don't come from a college classroom, a consultant, or an MBA program? Over the last ten years, I've had the privilege of sitting behind a microphone and interviewing hundreds of CEOs, entrepreneurs, shop owners, engineers, and manufacturing leaders. What started as a podcast turned into something far more valuable—a front-row seat to the...

Defense spending is rising. Aerospace production is accelerating. Munitions demand is growing. And behind the scenes, manufacturers are preparing for what could become one of the biggest opportunities in decades. In this episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim Carr shares what he's seeing firsthand from the front lines of aerospace and defense manufacturing. He discusses why some shops will be positioned...

A young mechanical engineering student named Jake Masters reached out to me on LinkedIn asking for advice before stepping into his family's 70-year-old CNC manufacturing business. That message inspired this episode. In this solo episode of My TRUE POSITION, Jim Carr shares 10 hard-earned lessons about leadership, failure, culture, cash flow, technology, and what it really takes to survive in preci...

In this episode, Jim Carr sits down with Lorin Shamos from First Resonance to break down why traditional ERP and MRP systems are falling behind—and what a modern "Factory Operating System" actually looks like. From real-time scheduling and material planning to execution, traceability, and automation, this conversation dives into how advanced manufacturers are replacing spreadsheets and firefightin...

Not all manufacturing is created equal. Some parts can fail. Others can't. In this episode, Jim Carr sits down with Errick Egeland from The Lee Company to explore what it takes to manufacture miniature, high-reliability fluid control components used in aerospace, medical, defense, and space applications. From precision flow control to extreme repeatability, this conversation dives into the discipl...

Space isn't just about launching satellites anymore—it's about maintaining them, inspecting them, and eventually removing them. In this episode, Jim Carr sits down with Jeff Schloemer from Astroscale to break down the emerging world of in-orbit servicing and space logistics. From satellite inspection and life extension to debris removal and collision prevention, this conversation explores how spac...

Most shops aren't losing money on bad machining—they're losing it on bad execution. In this episode, Jim Carr sits down with Patrick Diggins from Aligned Vision to break down one of the biggest hidden problems in manufacturing: the gap between what engineering designs and what actually gets built on the shop floor. We're talking laser-guided assembly, AI-driven inspection, and real-time digital wo...