For Pioneer MuTracx, the Future Looks Bright

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Starkey:

de Geus: In the Whelen facility we are now up to 50 double-sided panels—that's the target we wanted to achieve at Whelen and that's right at our capabilities.

Starkey: Previously, inkjet has been to an extent dismissed as a technique only for producing a few quick prototypes. With Lunaris, you've got a complete new dimension with an imaging system that is revolutionary, which is also a true production throughput machine.

de Geus: Production is all about uptime. You must have a robust production process and our technology enables this, due to redundancy.

Starkey: I have observed for a long time the developments and the evolution of the Lunaris system and I think that it exemplifies the highest level of engineering. The machine is so delightfully and so completely engineered, the quality of the engineering design and the build quality have been demonstrated in several months of serious production operation, which again will be a big weapon invasion for the equipment elsewhere in the market. I have seen many new developments that work fine if you do a demonstration, and they might work fine for a couple of weeks if there is an engineer in close attendance, but the thing starts wearing out.

de Geus: The mother company of MuTracx now is the Sioux Group and we are a company in high-tech product engineering and product development. Comparing the MuTracx Lunaris system to other kinds of production equipment, even semiconductor equipment or pick and place equipment, the Lunaris equipment is a really high-tech system. So it was a difficult task to come up with a robust platform up to specification, but now we're there. The team has done a wonderful job in getting to the point where we are now and we've proven ourselves in a real production process. We have matured the technology, and the company is now ready for the commercial phase.

Matties: What has the public response been to the Whelen story and in particular your part in that story?

de Geus: About Sioux’s acquiring of the MuTracx company we’ve seen only positive reactions. We’ve had a lot of discussion with a lot of partners and that's seen as a positive development because with MuTracx being part of a larger, more mature and stable company, the whole aspect of going into business with MuTracx as a smaller startup company has disappeared. I think the whole Whelen story has caught the attention of a lot of people, especially around being able to go from CAM to etch in a few minutes. For productronica, we usually get an email burst and normally you would get a few percentages of reaction; we've got 40–50% more reaction due to the article that came out recently and all that it said about Whelen. This has really caught on; we’ve seen more traction and that's where we are now.

Matties: As you get the second and third installations it's only going to go up. When you and I first met there was some transition going on in leadership. How has that process worked out?

de Geus: It's fully executed so we are now fully in business and the whole process is done. We're up and running. We are engineering and making new leaps. It's all been laid down.

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