TechPrecision Corporation (OTC:TPCS) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Alexander Shen: Let me set you straight on that then. The humans that we have building things one at a time, they can only build one of them at a time. They don’t have two sets of hands or five steps of hands to build five at a time or two at a time. They can only build one at a time.

Unidentified Analyst: When you build something one at a time, but you have, let’s say, five or 10 items for that specific build lined up behind it, does machinery need to be adjusted, if you built one item on a machine, and then you had another order and you built a completely different type of item. Does that machine generically speaking, need to be adjusted to build the next item coming through versus building five of the same ones?

Alexander Shen: We don’t €“ excuse me for just pointing something out here, Rob. I’m a master operator. So I probably understand about efficiencies that we lose by going to one job to a different kind of job. But you were talking about can we build multiples at the same time, we build one at a time. That’s my point.

Unidentified Analyst: Right. I understand that. I think I was asking something else. Anyhow, I will let someone else ask some questions. Thank you very much.

Alexander Shen: Thank you.

Thomas Sammons: Thank you.

Operator: Okay. We have a follow-up question coming from Ross Taylor with ARS Investment Partners. Please proceed.

Ross Taylor: Yes. Just a couple of things, gentlemen. One is, if you’re looking at the Stadco turnaround, how much of that turnaround is cultural, how much of it is building out the team and how much of it is equipment and capability €“ hardware capabilities and the like?

Alexander Shen: I think on the 80-20, it’s more the 80% people and 20% other in general. It’s more than half.

Ross Taylor: Okay. And when you look at where you stand in this turnaround at this process, being from Seattle, I don’t usually use baseball analogies because we’ve never been very good at it. But let’s use one, what inning €“ since we had a good €“ we actually won this year. So let’s go to what innings do you see the company in on that turnaround? Are you early stages? You’ve been working on it for a while. Do you think that you’re kind of in the middle innings here, where you are starting to see and you expect to see an accelerated level of traction on your efforts and the like going forward? How do you see this playing out?

Alexander Shen: What inning are we in, Tom? Are we still in pre-game, pre-season?

Thomas Sammons: I don’t know. If you say middle innings and you start, but what does that run? Three to six, three to seven?

Alexander Shen: How many innings are there?

Thomas Sammons: Well, we could go into over time, and we could play extra earnings because

Ross Taylor: Yes. 17. But don’t worry they ask those who win. So looking at it, that’s…

Alexander Shen: Ross, I think it’s still up in the air. I think we have more work to do to be able to answer that correctly. We want to answer that as soon as possible. We’re not dragging our feet. There’s a much heightened sense of urgency now that we have two to manage.

Thomas Sammons: Well, no one wants to see improvement in the business more than us at this point.

Alexander Shen: That’s absolutely right. He’s got his hands on my throat, Ross.

Ross Taylor: Yes. Well he €“ better him than me. Is there anything that €“ when you look at this turnaround process, is there anything about it that €“ I mean you are a turnaround expert and you’ve done that successfully everywhere you’ve been. Is there any reason why you look at this and you say, this is going to be a tougher job than anything else I’ve done?