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New Leadership at MuTracx
October 8, 2015 | Barry Matties, I-Connect007Estimated reading time: 14 minutes
In this interview, I speak with Arnoud De Geus, managing director of the Sioux Group, who discusses the recent integration of MuTracx into the Sioux Group, and how Whelen Engineering, who has installed the MuTracx Lunaris primary imaging equipment and happens to be the United States’ first captive PCB manufacturing facility in many years, will impact U.S. manufacturing. Arnoud also discusses the future strategies for PCB manufacturing using inkjet technology. (For more information on Whelen’s new, state-of-the-art PCB facility, see I-Connect007’s October issue of The PCB Magazine.)
Barry Matties: Sioux Group does quite a variety of things. Why don’t you start by telling us about the company and what you do?
Arnoud de Geus: Sioux Group is in high-tech product development, such as semiconductor product development, solar production or electron microscopes. Additionally, we also do consumer electronics and automotive-related product development, but looking at our portfolio, the larger equipment is the bulk of our business at about 80%. Our customers are typically companies like MuTracx.
Sioux, for the most part, is active in the concept, engineering and development of products. We are now gradually moving into the production of those systems we engineered.
Matties: When was Sioux established?
de Geus: Sioux started 20 years ago and of course we started as a supplier for the larger OEMs in the region—Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, etc. Sioux has grown since 2009 at a rate of about 20–30% a year, against a downturn.
Because we are based in the southern parts of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, we're still very much hooked up to that area, but our strategy is that we want to internationalize. We are currently also establishing a footprint in Asia, in Vietnam, and we are in Russia and America to spread our customer base to a larger number of customers internationally. That's one way to do it; the other way is that we create our own customers. We're also active in establishing new OEMs, of which MuTracx is an example.
We have a few other kinds of companies. For instance, we do spin-outs with FEI, with a company called Phenom-World, which makes a specific electron microscope and similar type equipment. We are both an investor and a supplier.
Matties: It must be pretty exciting for you.
de Geus: Absolutely. Especially with those larger equipment manufacturers we are working with; we usually see that they have interesting technology portfolios, which they use in their own markets. For instance, with this technology portfolio based around inkjets, with what we did at Océ, we can map this technology to another market like PCB production. It's not a market for Océ itself, but we can reuse that technology and leverage their knowledge to create a new case—like MuTracx—for a completely different market.
Matties: How long ago did the MuTracx project start?
de Geus: The project itself is a little older, but the formation of the company happened around 2009.
Matties: When MuTracx formed, what was the basic idea?
de Geus: The basic idea from the start has been to produce digital production equipment for imaging innerlayer PCBs. That has been our main focus for the first several years.
Matties: So we are here in New Hampshire, where we've just visited Whelen, your first customer for the MuTracx primary imaging system. It's installed and running in a production environment. There were some issues initially that I think have been worked out. Congratulations—that is quite an accomplishment.
de Geus: Thanks. Our primary imaging-based system has come to the level now where we can scale up and increase our installed base. We'll begin by doing this in America and Europe.
Matties: In Asia, speed is going to be an issue, right? How do you solve that?
de Geus: What we'll be doing first is establishing a larger footprint in the U.S. and Europe to increase our installed base with X number of systems. We’ll try to have a steady business going and in the meantime figure out how we can manage the Asian market. In the next one-and-a-half or two years we will be fully ready for a global rollout, but we’ll start it from Europe and the U.S.
Matties: You're relying on third-party products to support the process and you have a single-source supplier for that, right? It seems like you may be a bit vulnerable.
de Geus: Yes, but then again, we like to think in partnerships, so we are very open to establishing open and transparent relationships with those parties, both with our head supplier and ink supplier. Still, it is a single source, but we have more examples of single-source supplier relationships working than not. If both parties are fully supporting the business case then I think it can be a win-win situation for everybody—for MuTracx, for our suppliers, and for our customers. Looking at it in an integral way, I think those businesses can thrive.
Matties: The technology, when I see it working, looks great. The approach you guys are using looks like it can be fantastic. Tweak it in, dial it in and stabilize it, and it looks like it's going to be a real winner.
de Geus: Absolutely. In the last few months I was much more involved with the business case, talking to potential new customers. Everybody sees that this technology has a real disruptive edge to it and is looking forward to taking new steps.
I think we really have a case here. Digital imaging in PCB production has stepped forward, including the environmental footprint. The green aspect of the facility at Whelen is really an advantage to a number of potential customers. Having zero waste treatment, taking care of your water consumption and minimizing the need for permits are going to be important aspects, not only in the U.S. but also in Asia.
Matties: Asia is really cracking down on that. Let's talk about the structure of MuTracx. It changed in the last month or so, where you've stepped in. There was a group of venture capitalists for four or five years that funded MuTracx and now they have backed out. What is the ownership structure now?Page 1 of 3
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