Bold, creative and agile, that's how I'd describe CEO and Co-Founder Rainer Koppitz and KATEK SE, the EMS company he and Team Blue have built from scratch in three short and strange years! KATEK SE is a business forged in the fire of manufacturing and supply chain disruption and that has created something quite unique.
We rarely go over twenty minutes on this show, but in this in-depth interview we dig into the key trends impacting the industry and there was nothing I wanted to edit out! We explore compelling reason to be, and not to be, in China right now; the stellar year that was 2022; the impact of economic challenges and prediction on how hard or soft a downturn might be; talent shortages and the value of automation as mitigation; cost inflation and the need to raise prices; moving capital from inventory and work-in-progress back to free cash for investment; continued industry consolidation; and so much more.
I also asked Rainer about their agile 'speedboat' strategy, specifically if it can be maintained at scale or if it has required modification to reflect lessons learnt from recent market disruptions.
Like every episode of EMS@C-Level, this one was sponsored by global inspection leader Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Manufacturing Autonomy Specialist CloudNC (https://www.cloudnc.com).
Like every episode of EMS@C-Level, this one was sponsored by global inspection leader Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Adaptable Automation Specialist Launchpad.build (https://launchpad.build).
You can see video versions of all of the EMS@C-Level pods on our YouTube playlist.