Texas Oil and Gas Podcast original episode aired September 4th 2018, they bring Cody Clark, President of Us Safety Sign and Decal on air to talk about some of the things they do and the “Shift in procurement†in the Oil and Gas Industry, here is the recap…
Josh- We have another special guest coming on today, this is Cody Clark and he is the President of US Safety Signs and Decal. Cody we appreciate having you on today buddy, how’s things going this morning?
Cody- I appreciate you having me on Josh and Ryan, things are going great, its football season. I’m excited! {Laughing}
Ryan- Hey I got to ask you, what’s the weather like up there because I’m going to be up in your neck of the woods this next Tuesday? Is it cooled off or is it hot like it is down here in Texas?
Cody- Yeah, you will need to start saying the words “Boomer Soonerâ€.
Ryan- {Laughing}
Cody- I heard you were going to be up this way, it’s your typical muggy 90’s, Houston weather
Ryan- I am north of Houston so it’s a little dry right now so it’s not that mugginess. Need to get a nice cool front coming in next week, get it nice and cool for me. Get it down to about 55-60 that would be nice.
Cody- I will do what I can on that.
All- {Laughing}
Cody- Just don’t wear horns up here Ryan, that’s the best advice I can give ya, just don’t wear horns.
Ryan- I am a Texas Tech Red Raider fan so we are ok, I can’t even talk smack. I like basically can’t say anything while I am in Oklahoma.
Cody- You will be alright, I will keep you safe.
Ryan- {Laughs}
Josh- Cody we have some information here we wanted to kind of touch base about. You mentioned in one of your emails the shift in how procurement in the oil and gas industry is changing. Can you share with some of our listeners how you see procurement changing specifically in the oil and gas industry?
Cody- Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been on the opposite side being a customer and being involved with the oil and gas and EP companies. One of the things we always strive to do is get the best product on time and for the best price. The days where your managers in the field had company credit cards to run up and buy a part here and there or to get stuff to keep their project going, that time is gone. As a company here at US Safety Sign we have taken a new approach and really had to implement what I call “lean processes†within our company and organization to see what makes us successful, what makes us successful is having great vendors. I looked at our vendors and leaned out our processes to get the best vendors that fit our needs. Then I started looking to see how we can help make our customers and partners more successful and by doing that is streamlining the process so procurement, your buyers and so on. For one it standardizes all the safety signs and other products within the company, it also short tracks them where they can go to one location, pick what they want and its linked directly to their purchasing and buyer group where all they have to do is actually make one click and approve then it comes directly to us. We have developed customized shopping carts for our existing customers and our new customers. For the lack of a better term, if you can envision Amazon, what we do is we get with the groups within the companies and we find out what signage they need and we customize it with their company logo or all their signs could be customized and we identify it by part numbers and what we do is we build a customized catalog and once we do that, then their IT department grabs that URL to their shopping cart and they put their backend data which is their purchasing, PO’s or credit card and so on then they implement it throughout their whole company so all safety signage go to this URL, check out and it gives one PO, simple. We also give them live updates to when we receive the order up until the day it ships.
The amount of feedback we have received from that has been tremendous and the other key thing that a lot of people don’t realize is, not a lot of people walk around and think about safety signs all the time so it’s my job to educate them. Just like today I am sure as you came into the office or every day in your travels, what does everybody look at? They look at signs right? (continued on page 2)
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Signs are everywhere in our lives, so ANSI Z535 is a recommended practice for safety signage in the Oil and Gas industry. Last year OSHA 29 CFR 1910.145 is now referencing that, which now basically makes it law where it says safety signs must have a header, must be a certain color, must have a picto (pictogram) and verbiage next to it. It also states in there that all new signage must meet this standard along with replacing old signage. That it is a driving force in the industry and a lot of companies are conforming to that new standard. As a company we fast track that to where we are providing the shopping cart that is customized to their needs and can always be updated as they grow and expand, it’s kind of a one stop shop, checkout and it literally takes them less than 5 minutes to do an order instead of going through 5 or 6 people to get an approval or waiting on PO’s and it helps them streamline their processes internally. It’s kind of a niche that we found and those things that we do as a company, try to see what we can do to help our partners, I call them partners because they are partners in our success and we definitely want to help them be successful and this is just one of the things that we do to help them be more successful.
Ryan- Cody help me out here, how do you keep up with all of these regulations because it sounds like it’s a full time job just to keep up with the changing rules and regulations?
Cody- It is, share a little of my background, I started digging ditches in the oilfield and they promoted me to rebuilding pumps, swivels, blocks. A lot of people out there may not remember swivels and blocks because we have Top Drives now. As well as engines, at the time I thought that was a demotion {Laughs} then I came up all the way from Floorhand and worked my way up to a Vice President, then I became Director of HSE and I was part of API on many boards, helped develop standards and things to that nature, so it’s kind of my background to always stay on top of the standards that are changing out there, they are changing all the time and it is a full time job. I definitely pay particular attention to those standards.
When I bring the standard up, the first thing that they say is, “Well I didn’t know that†and I say “That’s why you have us, we are here to help youâ€
Ryan- Right and ussafetysign.com is the website, ussafetysign.com. I haven’t talked to you in I guess probably since you came on for our special episode for the Patterson 219 event back early this year. What are some of the changes you have seen as the industry has ramped up? What are some of the things that you might want to let listeners know that are out there on a rig or in an office environment? What are some of the things that you guys are seeing that have kind of slipped through the cracks in the industry that you need to be watching out for?
Cody- You always trend the type of incident out there, slips trips and falls. The best advice I can give you regardless if you have got 30 years’ experience in the oil and gas industry or you got a week is to pay attention to your surroundings at all times and latch onto your mentors and learn from them, there is an old saying in the oil and gas industry, “The only dumb questions are the questions not askedâ€, do not be scared or intimidated to ask questions because it is a lot easier to work with a 5 man crew than a 3 or 4 man crew and by doing that it is creating a team atmosphere, that’s the best advice I can give you. Some of the exciting things I just saw yesterday is the Powder River Basin is going to be the new spot to be in Wyoming and I am pretty excited about that as there is a lot of focus on that right now and we want to be a huge part of that.
Ryan- Couple of things you are a huge part of, obviously you work with us and Oil Country Media and you are our hard hat sticker sponsor, so if you are getting a hard hat sticker thanks the folks of at US Safety Sign and Decal, you can see why we partner with them, Cody and his team their know their stuff. Ussafetysign.com, you can give them a call at 800-678-2529. You guys are on top of it, have a lot of cool stuff in the stores, I know the website you said you are tweaking it right now especially considering you have a lot of new features coming up. Cody I know we are up against the clock here, is there anything else before we let you get out of here today?
Cody- Don’t look at us as just a safety sign company, anything that you can possibly think of, shirts, embroidering, cups, mugs, koozies, anything like that we can do. I know it’s so quick to call somebody just right down the road that’s local, our company is so quick at getting things out and we sponsor a lot of golf tournaments and stuff out there in the industry. We want to be a partner in your success, so any type of events that you have coming up please don’t hesitate to give us a call and we will be more than happy to help you.
Ryan- Again its ussaftysign.com and thanks again for your time today Cody.
Cody- Thank you Ryan and Josh, I appreciate it.
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