Kristian Hulgard is highly knowledgeable in the area of robotics, also in automation and the software that goes with each of those areas. Additionally, he has been the person growing the U.S. market for OnRobot (Odense, Denmark). These things made him an ideal choice for MotionTech, a Stockholm, Sweden based conglomerate that was looking for someone to set up U.S. operations. He joined the company only a few weeks ago as we go to press.
FWM: Welcome, everyone, Dave Brambert here with Fifth Wave Manufacturing. We have the fortuitous task this morning of interviewing our friend Kristian Hulgard, who was the very first person that we interviewed at Fifth Wave Manufacturing. Welcome.
Kristian Hulgard: Thank you very much.
FWM: Kristian, you’ve made a transition in your career from OnRobot, where you were for about nine years or so, right?
Hulgard: Correct.
FWM: And now to a company called MotionTech. I’ll let you tell the folks all about that. But first of all, great to see you. Great to catch up again.
Hulgard: Likewise.
FWM: I’d like you to take us through that transition, because OnRobot is a pretty well-known company.
Hulgard: Yeah. Approximately nine years ago, I got the task from OnRobot. I was living in the Middle East back then, and I got the job at OnRobot to establish a commercial infrastructure in the U.S. And man, thinking back, these nine years have been flying by. Fantastic products, great colleagues, great distributors and partners. It’s truly been a privilege to work with OnRobot.
Setting up the company, establishing the office, building a team, building the distribution network and all of that has prepared me now for this transition, because this was exactly what MotionTech was looking for. We are operating in Europe and Asia right now, but we would like to get introduced and build this commercial infrastructure in the U.S. as well.
So we had some conversations, and we found an agreement. I’m in Europe right now as we speak. I’m here for the next month for onboarding and visiting all the companies in the MotionTech group, getting familiar with the technology, the value proposition, everything.
Then in October, I’m back in Dallas, where we basically have a kickoff. We’ll start looking at office space, the business plan, the strategy and how we’re going to move into the market. So, yeah, exciting times ahead for sure.
FWM: Very much so. And I don’t think you’re going to have too tough a task when it comes time to recruit people, because you’re right where everything’s happening in automation. Again, I’ll let you tell us about the product and what areas they want to grow in, knowing full well you’ve been with the company since September 1 officially, right?
Hulgard: Yeah, that’s right.
FWM: And it’s now the ninth.
Hulgard: Yeah. You’re right. MotionTech and I decided together that Dallas-Fort Worth would be a great starting point. I’ve been situated there for the past 10 years now, and it is a hotbed of technology companies moving in and talent moving in. You’re strategically positioned geographically. We can travel anywhere in the States within three or four hours. Dallas-Fort Worth is just a great hub, and that’s where we decided to settle down.
FWM: Like you say, it’s a great airline hub. That’s where everyone goes to transfer planes. If they didn’t do it at O’Hare already, they do it at Dallas-Fort Worth.
Hulgard: You can literally get anywhere direct.
FWM: Yes, absolutely. Now, you had experience setting up a channel for OnRobot, and I know that was a great experience for you. A relationship is essential for success, and I suspect you will take everything you learned doing that for OnRobot and carry it into this next step here.
Hulgard: Yeah. Of course, the products are a little bit different. MotionTech is a heavy hitter in Europe. The MotionTech group consists of about eight companies.
FWM: Oh, wow. Okay.
Hulgard: They’re located around the world, mainly in Europe, but also in Malaysia. The offerings in Europe and Asia are a lot larger than what we’re initially going to start with in the U.S.
We’ve identified especially three or four key products that I’m happy to talk about, and we’ll start with those. These products fit really well into distribution and integration. The products focus mainly right now on intralogistics, automated warehousing, packaging and palletizing.
There’s great synergy in the flow where these companies offer their technologies. From storage, to conveying, to packaging, to palletizing, there’s a natural flow and synergy. These solutions, although customizable and somewhat bespoke, also include a number of standardized components and products that fit really well into the distribution channel.
And as you mentioned, that’s the space I’ve been working in for the past decade: opening up channels and building these relationships.
The response from my whole channel and network when I announced that I was moving has been overwhelmingly positive. Most of them have reached out and said, “Hey, we still want to do business. Please come knock on our door when you’re ready.”
FWM: That’s a nice way to start.
Hulgard: Yes, exactly. That’s going to be step one, of course: going around with the team, opening up some channels and getting some products into the market.
FWM: Yeah. Well, you mentioned the channel, and we’ll get back to that. Let’s talk about the products. Before we do that, though, I just want to make sure in my mind: Is MotionTech making the products that they’re putting through distribution?
Hulgard: Yes. MotionTech is the umbrella, or the ultimate owner, of these eight companies.
FWM: The umbrella.
Hulgard: Yes, exactly. The main companies we’re going to focus on introducing to the U.S. include a company called Nekos from Finland. They make fully automated storage units.
Then we have Kairos Global. They make curved conveying solutions.
We have Unitech in Italy, which makes packaging and palletizing solutions on a somewhat larger scale than what I came from at OnRobot, which focused more on small and medium-sized companies. This is packaging and palletizing for larger companies like Amazon and PepsiCo.
FWM: Consumer packaged goods kinds of places.
Hulgard: Yeah. And then we have Inducer, the most recent acquisition by MotionTech, which focuses on handling fresh produce and fruit.
So there is some overlap in the technologies, but ultimately there is great synergy among them. Identifying the right channel that has access to the industries we want to focus on is going to be key.
What I can say is that the technology itself is very high-value-add, competitive and technologically advanced. Some of these things are not really competing with anybody because, especially with Nekos, there’s no one making a similar storage unit.
So I don’t see it being too difficult to go into a meeting room and say, “Hey, check this awesome technology out,” and start moving some product. I’m excited to get started on this journey.
FWM: That’s a great way to start. Sometimes I look at a manufacturing plant and see it as a black box where materials go in one side and products shoot out the other side.
But you can also look at it like the early computers, where there were a lot of chips that handed things off to other chips. That’s kind of what we’re building here. We have this product or group of products that does one function, and then it’s handed off to another group of products that moves it to a palletizer. Then there are palletizing products, and maybe even something that moves a pallet into the truck.
Those are all almost like the build inside a computer.
Hulgard: Yes. And of course there’s value when all these key components in your manufacturing flow come from the same company. There’s value in terms of the software that controls it, service and maintenance, and having one point of contact.
That one point of contact is also important to mention when we talk about why MotionTech is looking to get into the U.S.
MotionTech has grown about 20 percent every year for the past five years, I think. The demand has become bigger and bigger, and projects started to cross the Atlantic while still being sold from Europe.
Of course, our customers in the U.S. expect a local presence. This is expensive technology and these are big projects. I also think it’s fair for American manufacturers to expect that we have local presence and support and that there’s always somebody they can call. We need to get closer to the customers.
That was ultimately why MotionTech said, “We have to move now. We’ve already started selling solutions to the U.S. We have to establish ourselves.”
FWM: It makes a lot of sense.
Hulgard: Yeah, it does, especially with the customer group we’re looking at. These are big customers, Fortune 500 companies. We have to be a bigger supporting partner to them than we can be if we only have offices in Europe or Asia.
So it’s going to be a really good start for us.
FWM: Good. I saw some of the videos that you have on the site, and some of them are really fascinating. It’s not exactly an autonomous mobile robot. There’s more functionality. Its job isn’t simply to move itself. You’re actually moving products, stacks of things, whatever it is.
But you guys are doing that whole picture, right? You’re making all of that happen. It’s a slightly different philosophy from, “We can move these things that are close to the floor around.” It’s more like, “We become part of your warehouse, and we’re going to move your warehouse around like game pieces.”
Hulgard: Yeah. I think a big value that the whole MotionTech portfolio brings is that we have both standardized solutions and a large customizable engineering resource at the different company levels.
We can really take the customer’s demands or wishes into account. If they say, “I need the chessboard to look exactly like that, but we have to move the pieces like this,” we can accommodate that.
But you also have the standardized solution side, where we can say, “Okay, we might have a less expensive standard product here. We can put it in your facility. We’re ready to go, with lower lead times and better pricing.”
Both of those options are available. In terms of what we can move and how we can move it, we’re pretty well covered for most of the products that are out there.
And I don’t think it’s a secret that MotionTech is also looking to acquire additional companies in the future. They’ve acquired these eight companies over the past five years, I think, and there are future acquisitions in the pipeline as well.
So we’re really building an extensive portfolio in products and services and ultimately becoming an A-to-Z partner to our customers.
FWM: I’m going to guess one of those might be the new crop of driverless forklifts and things like that.
Hulgard: I’m not allowed to talk about that.
FWM: I know you can’t say a word. But looking at the portfolio, I thought that might be something that would be good. And at the bin level—not the pallet level, but something two feet by a foot and a half—having those going through without a track.
That’s a good question, though, if I may interrupt myself. Is it more about autonomous mobile robots, or is it still more about automated guided vehicles?
Hulgard: There’s a scenario for both. What we are going to focus on from the start, which I think is an easier product for introducing the company, the services and the value we bring, is good old-fashioned conveying.
FWM: Okay, sure.
Hulgard: We have some amazing conveying technology. Talking about moving things from A to B, the Kairos Global product is something truly unique and truly fascinating. There’s no one who makes curved conveyors like they do.
We also have standard products for sending boxes left and right, gate stations and all these things that are extremely competitive. I think we’re going to start there.
Also, because AMRs and AGVs are a little bit more complicated space to work in. You add some layers of complexity. I’m not saying we will not supply them. We will most likely do that in the future.
But to start with in the U.S., I think we’re going to focus on the more standardized products, get them into distribution and establish the partnerships, because right now it’s just me.
I have to build the relationships, do the training, open the office and look at manufacturing. All these things add up. So we’re going to start with the simpler level of complexity and build from there.
FWM: You know, it’s really interesting. I consider conveyors to be part of the whole automation world, and I have almost no content about them on my site, even though I have a section that says “conveyors.”
I’m not sure why that is, but I think that is still an area for big improvement. It’s a kind of central hub of the wheel, so to speak, where all the other things emanate from if you do it right. I’ve even seen some three-dimensional systems and things like that.
Hulgard: I would love to share some information on the Kairos product. They truly have a unique technology that saves our customers a massive amount of money in both maintenance and installation. It is really a good product.
FWM: Yeah.
Hulgard: I would love to share some information on that.
FWM: We’re ready to receive that info.
Hulgard: Okay, good. And talking about this Kairos product, I don’t think it’s a secret either that we are considering moving manufacturing to the States as well.
That would also allow us to meet our customers and get closer to them, while being able to provide lower lead times and still be competitive price-wise, with no import tariffs and so on.
It’s an important position to take, especially with this product. So we are considering going in that direction. Once the button has been pushed, I would love to share that news with you as well.
FWM: Yeah, for sure. You have an umbrella organization that can bring you some advantages that might not be the case with a company simply coming into the U.S. market. Can you talk about some of those synergies?
Hulgard: Yeah. One thing is the flow of the products that complement each other, which I talked about earlier. But where it gets really exciting, I think, is also future acquisitions. We are in a position to shape the company to meet our customers’ expectations in the best way.
I know that’s kind of a fluffy answer, but it’s such a privileged position to be in. We can say, “Hey, we see demand here. We need help here. We need support here.”
Whether it’s service, new technology, software or whatever it might be, we can consider acquiring something in that field and be up and running fast, helping our customers from day one.
There’s a huge privilege and great synergy on that side. And again, we can expect that there will be some future acquisitions.
So far, there’s an amazing team behind MotionTech. I’ve now spent some time here in Europe. I’m going to Stockholm in a week’s time to meet the whole team in person for the first time. I’m super excited.
FWM: That’s great.
Hulgard: Yeah. I’ve been welcomed with open arms. It’s been a very positive surprise that everybody has been so welcoming. I could feel that there’s trust from day one. That’s been extremely important for me as well. So, yeah, beyond excited, really.
FWM: That’s good. That’s really good. I’m so glad to hear that, and it’s well earned. I know what a hard worker you are and what a smart guy you are.
Hulgard: Thank you very much.
FWM: There’s no denying it. Anyway, that’s fantastic. Tell me about your next 100 days or so. What do you hope to accomplish?
Hulgard: Once my feet touch down in Dallas, I think step one for the next couple of months is that I’m going to be on speed dial with both customers and partners—people I’ve been working with who I know I can add some value to.
If I count every single partner I’ve worked with in the past nine years, it’s probably about 250 distributor, integrator and value-added distributor-style companies.
I’m going to spend time mapping everybody and making sure I don’t knock on unnecessary doors either. Of course, the products we have now need to bring value to the business.
So we’re going to map that out and make some phone calls.
I’ve already been contacted by a handful of customers who said, “Hey, I see you’re in warehousing and intralogistics. We have a project right here, right now. Let’s go.”
FWM: Wow, really?
Hulgard: Yes. It’s been overwhelming. So of course I’ll go out and visit these guys and see what their problems are—or their challenges are—and hopefully figure out how we can solve them.
Really, getting back in touch with people is going to be my next three months, I think.
Once we move into 2027, if we’re in a good position, we can start looking at what the team is going to look like. Just like at OnRobot, we had about half a year to a year where it was me and one application engineer. Once it got too busy for us, we started adding headcount.
I think we’re going to follow the same steps here. We’ll see whether we need more hands on deck and in what regions, and then start building the team from there.
FWM: That’s wonderful. That’s really good. And I think that’s a good way to roll it out, too. Don’t hire until you really are being stretched. When you have one person, you really know you’re being stretched. Once you have 15 or 20 people, you might not feel that so personally with each person, but you know the company is being stretched.
Hulgard: Yeah. The additional hires need to come from growth, and not the other way around.
FWM: Instead of trying to hire in order to get growth.
Hulgard: Yeah. But I’m excited. I like to work hard. I like to run around and fly around to all the partners. I love it.
I’ve always been an active part of sales, even though I was managing the team, and I will probably never let that go.
So getting out there, getting busy and getting a little stressed—I think that’s just part of the fun.
FWM: I agree with you. It’s one of the best things about being in business.
Hulgard: Yes, exactly.
FWM: And then you end up with lifelong relationships, too, which is kind of a side benefit. It’s nice.
Hulgard: Yeah. And we’ve got PACK EXPO here in October already.
FWM: Oh, yeah.
Hulgard: We have a booth and everything. So to the reader or viewer, if it is of interest, I’ll be there all week. People can stop by and we can have a chat.
FWM: Great. Do you remember the dates and the location?
Hulgard: Yeah, it’s in Chicago.
FWM: And I imagine McCormick Place. Is that right?
Hulgard: Yes, it is. It’s from the 18th to the 21st of October.
FWM: Okay, good. Thank you for that. What else? Anything else you wanted to cover, Kristian?
Hulgard: I just want to thank you for giving me some time to tell you about the journey here. That’s been fantastic. Thank you for that.
FWM: We’d like to know what’s up.
Hulgard: That’s right. And I’ll do everything I can to keep you busy.
FWM: I’m counting on it!