04 - Dave Shoemaker of Tapecon - Internal Perspective - The Better Product Solutions Podcast

In this episode of The Better Product Solutions Podcast, we speak with Dave Shoemaker, Senior Manufacturing Engineer Manager at Tapecon.  In this podcast, Dave gives us an internal perspective through working at Tapecon for over 37 years. He explains how new applications are captured based on the stage of the prospect, how to approach requests for cost reductions on products and how to address overbuilt designs.

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Bringing a product to market is challenging. Having confidence in your contract manufacturing partner is critical.

Tapecon works with product teams to improve your market competitiveness through outsourced manufacturing solutions. 

Tapecon is a trusted partner of OEM contract manufacturing. We work with product teams to manufacture prototypes, components, assemblies and provide full production services involving custom materials converting and specialized application printing.

Our extensive application engineering experience and collaborative partnerships enable us to assist in materials selection and process design for cost-effective functionality, performance, and reliability for medical, electronics, and industrial industries.

Website - https://tapecon.com/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Tapecon/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tapeconinc/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/tape...

Twitter - https://twitter.com/Tapecon

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Transcript:
- Hello everyone and thanks for joining us. This is episode four of the Better Product Podcast. And I'm really excited about this podcast because we decided to try something a little bit different. We have an employee of Tapecon, a long-standing employee Dave Shoemaker joining us. And I'll just give a quick title intro for Dave and then Dave, I'll let you kinda introduce yourself on your own and tell us about yourself. But Dave Shoemaker, Senior Manufacturing and RND Engineer at Tapecon. He's been with us for a long time. Capital L or all capitals on the long so. Dave, I'll let you say the big number, but thanks for being on the podcast Dave and trying something new. Because up to this point, I've been interviewing some suppliers of our raw materials and I think this is gonna be an interesting episode because it's gonna bring a little bit more, I'd say internal perspective from Tapecon. So, I'll stop talking and just Dave tell us about yourself and your role at Tapecon.

- Hello and thank you Steve. But one fun thing that I look at is every time I look out the front window, I was actually born right across Arizona. And that was in 1960. So I'm a long founding member of the area. So that's kind of a fun thing to play with. Anyways, it was 1983 when I started for Tapecon. We had, I believe it was 17 employees at the time. And my capabilities that I brought here was die-cutting. And I worked in the die-cutting department for about three years, but I always had a strong passion for all the capabilities that Tapecon had. And they'd had a lot, even at that time. And I think your father saw it as passion within me and before too long, I found myself dabbling in all the capabilities Tapecon had to offer. And as I learned, I became the go-to guy for new opportunities. I often find myself at a crossroads of the customer or prospect's needs and Tapecon's capabilities. It's my job to figure out how to combine suppliers, materials and Tapecon manufacturing processes to achieve the desired outcome.

- You've been with us for such a long time and you've seen the evolution kinda through the organization of all the different capabilities coming in and out.