Lou,

Since 1995, AMI has been the backbone of shutter shops like ours. It brought ordering, programming, the cart system, assembly, accounting, shipping, and much more together into one system, and Vintage has built its business on it. We have always seen Vintage as an experimental laboratory for assembling shutters, and we have always been inspired by AMI's ability to bring ideas into reality.

In that spirit, I've been building on AMI's foundation in two areas: the people on the floor and the machines they run. This letter is my idea of where that could go, and what I think could be the next step forward for AMI shops. Everything in it builds on AMI. None of it replaces anything AMI does.

The people

Before Vintage, I worked in an RV axle shop, in automotive gear assembly, and in medical implant machining. In every one, the rub was the same: management sets a goal, and the operators either hit it or they don't. And in every one, management saw labor as underused and built systems to measure it and improve it.

I believe the shutter shop has the same problem ten times over. The work is far more labor-intensive, and because each step is so decoupled from the next, it is hard to see what is slowing things down at any given moment, and the operators aren't held to anything. Managing the people in a shop like that is a plate of spaghetti in the dark. Work moves from station to station, and when the line slows down, nobody can see where or why.

That is what VDS set out to fix. It has since grown into an operating system for managing the floor.

It turns the lights on by putting a gauge on every operator. When every station scans its work, it is easy to see who or what is slowing down the line. The kiosk turns each job into a game: the standard is on the screen, everyone can see it, and everyone holds it all day. The operators on VDS at Vintage like the screens. Knowing how they are doing, and knowing that all of their work counts, has proved to be powerful.

At its core, VDS is a database that takes in data effortlessly and displays it in clear, creative ways. Fully integrated, it works like an Internet of Things for the plant, tracking operator output and flow, orders, machine diagnostics, inventory, and material usage in one place. That alone makes it a powerful tool. I believe systems like this are how labor-intensive manufacturing stays profitable in the United States. They take the emotion out of decisions and give ownership hard numbers to calculate their way to profitability.

On top of that sits one more layer: a local AI model running on the VDS server's own graphics card. There are no subscriptions, and the shop's data never leaves the building to reach it. It learns the shop, then begins to take over repetitive tasks and answer questions about the operation that used to take hours of digging.

Running at Vintage today

VDS is not fully rolled out at Vintage yet. Four operator kiosks are online, and the core technology is built and proving itself every day. The rest of the floor is ready to go when the shop is.

• Every second accounted for. Operators at VDS stations are accountable for every second of the day. Each one's individual report goes in their paycheck envelope, showing whether they are doing well or poorly over time.
• It just works. Adoption lives or dies on friction. The kiosks are single-board Linux computers with active cooling, sealed in plastic enclosures. They turn themselves on and off with the shifts, need no username or password, and have none of the failure points of a Windows box. They have run at 100% uptime for almost a year, and every diagnostic can be done over SSH from the office or remotely. For a 25–50 operator shop with no IT department, that matters more than any feature.
• Any screen is a VDS screen. Any device with a browser on the VDS network can be a scan kiosk, a manager's tablet, a scoreboard, an office display, a customer service portal, or the plant manager's suite.
• SOPs from the floor. The floor manager builds SOPs at the station on a tablet, with photos. Only a handful are written so far, but each one becomes training material.
• Ask VDS. The local AI answers questions from every tablet and portal. As open-source models improve, VDS upgrades to them with a download.

Where it goes next

1. Any production day replayed with real numbers to see what went right or wrong.
2. Take AMI paperless. Each kiosk shows the operator exactly what they need, and the plant manager gets the view he has always wanted.
3. An assistant that learns how the plant manager responds to events, suggests an action on every message, and once it has earned trust, takes the small daily tasks off his plate.
4. Reports that flag stations held by a single operator and suggest cross-training.
5. Maintenance assigned to a manager or operator, prompted until it's done, with its own SOP and material list.
6. Order sequencing that learns to schedule for the most output, the most money, or the fastest ship times. The AMI cart system already keeps the Bus Bus Car Bus problem in check on the floor. With AMI's order data and live floor data working together, sequencing could take that further and sort it out before orders ever reach the floor.
7. A dealer calls the shop and gets told where their order is, without anyone stopping to look it up.
8. Over a hundred more buildable feature ideas are in the VDS animation, under the VDS card below this letter.

The machines

Today a shop has two choices: a hobby-grade machine that barely does the job, or an industrial machine at a large price. Either way it arrives mothballed. It has to be wired and commissioned, then custom fixturing and tooling has to be built, often with your team's help to get it working with AMI. That takes serious time, money, skill, and risk.

I'm proposing machines built for exactly the task, with every feature the job needs and nothing extra, and AMI and VDS integrated from day one:

• Built around the process. Each process is evaluated first, then the fixturing and tooling are proposed, and the machine takes shape around them. The linear motion design repeats across machines: linear guides with roller bearing blocks, and helical gear racks on gear reducers driven by closed-loop servo motors, connected to one of several control options. That combination has held tight tolerances on the machines I have built. Raw material, steel frames, bent metal parts, laser cutting, welding, large machining, and powder coating go to local Fort Wayne shops that specialize in that work and that I have relationships with. I am very confident this combination will produce extremely reliable custom machines quickly, with predictable cost and lead times.
• Closed-loop calibration. The screen prompts the procedure and the machine cuts a calibration part. The operator takes it to the calibration center, the error is measured and sent back to the machine, and the machine adjusts itself. VDS logs every error, predicts drift, and schedules calibration so parts stay in spec.
• Maintenance the machine can prove. VDS watches motor torque against a tolerance and prompts the lubrication procedure when it climbs. Lower torque afterward confirms the job was done right.
• Tooling handled. Each machine comes with go/no-go gauges for the parts it makes. VDS tracks the work through the station and prompts a tool change before it causes a problem. The operator taps the tool on the screen, takes a new one from the tool crib, and assembles the holder. The calibration center measures its length and sends it to the machine. The plant manager sees live tool inventory at all times.
• Trained from the screen. Training videos on the control screen and prebuilt operation and maintenance SOPs in VDS make the transition fast and bring the ROI sooner.

The result is a plug-and-play machine that handles the whole automated process and lowers the skill it takes to run and maintain it. The machine render library is under the Abstrax Wired Machines card below this letter.

Why now

With Vintage in contract negotiations with Hunter Douglas, I'm seeking the opportunity to bring what we've built to other AMI shops. I hold a signed acknowledgment from Jim that I own VDS and the machine designs. The two cards below lay out two ways we could do it together.

Jon KnapkeAuto Fence LLC · Fort Wayne, Indiana(260) 433-4038 · jon@autofence.net