Hi everyone, and welcome to Growth Challenges for Manufacturers and How to Overcome Them. I’m your host, Katherine Seymour. This episode is brought to you by MacRAE’S, a trusted by North American businesses for over 100 years.
As a leader in B2B digital marketing, we help industrial manufacturing companies struggling with stagnant growth and leads. By leveraging advanced AI integration and automation into SEO and lead generation programs, we appear prominently on search and AI powered results, including chat GPT, Gemini, AI overviews and local search. This drives significantly more.
qualified traffic to their websites resulting in stronger lead flow, increased revenue and crucial for today’s highly competitive digital landscape. Learn more at mcraze.com today. Today I’m joined by Mark Bargloff, president and owner of Kinetic Technologies LLC, a robotic solution company that’s intently focused on solving real world challenges for manufacturers. Kinetic is built on values like integrity, servant leadership,
and a bold belief in dreaming big and delivering excellence. With automation and robotics as their toolkit and a strong sense of purpose in their DNA, and his team bring uniquely ethical high-performance approach to modern manufacturing. Mark, we’re thrilled to have you with us today. Welcome.
Thank you, Katherine. Thanks for having me.
Not a problem. So Mark, let’s start off with the story behind Kinetic Technologies. What inspired you to start this company and how did your background shape this mission?
I kind of have an interesting, ⁓ interesting road, interesting journey to, where we are at Kinetic Technologies. I came out of ⁓ product development. So I worked in several different companies ranging from small, medium and large and had a different startup before this, where we were doing ⁓ driverless technology, using a lot of machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision, ⁓ ended up selling that company and ⁓
in the interim, I worked with them for a little while. And ⁓ we decided that my calling was to start another business. ⁓ Kinetics started out of ⁓ some of the observations I had made just in general when I was doing product development. We were doing ⁓ agile software development, doing a lot of very, very rapid iterations of product development and creating new things. And I noticed that our mechanical engineering teams ⁓
were struggling a little bit, mechanical and manufacturing engineering with the longer, not just, it wasn’t really lead times, it was more on this agile approach to how do we rapidly engage with the engineering team and build mechanical components. And I met some folks and we decided that we were gonna start, but with engineering prototyping. So one thing led to another, it was, were,
you know, doing new stuff. was all everything that we were engaged in was more like the job shop for highly engineered prototypes. But what we started to come into was, was some interesting challenges associated with robotics, automation and manufacturing. It’s the, the, the, the kind of the precipice of the whole thing started with I had been introduced to a, much higher volume job than what I, what I was used to.
as far as one-off prototyping and looked at the volumes that were required in my own, my workforce and what my team wanted to do, what I thought was good value add for them and started to look into ⁓ what would it take maybe to automate that process through robotics integration. And that’s kind of where the aha moment came in. The same type of issue I saw in product development was actually happening in automation where we needed to rapidly engage in this
space of we need to bring automation technologies online. We’re having issues with ⁓ getting some of the specialization that engineering prototyping. So that kind of started the journey.
That’s awesome. Great to hear. So your values like integrative, beyond above reproach and the servant leadership ideology are at the forefront of everything you share. How does these values shape the way you do business and lead your team?
Yeah, it’s fundamental. Part of this is from my faith, my background, my Christian faith, where that had to be integral to what I did, period. You have to have a solid foundation. You need to have something solid to really settle yourself on, or else everything else kind of goes upside down. what we, kind of that calling, that idea, I didn’t know exactly what we were gonna do as a company.
I just knew that what was successful in my last adventure was that the people that were surrounded around the team and the vision, and this thing just kind of came through as, know, what am I going to do? Why do I feel like this is something I want to do? But what came through fairly clearly to me was it isn’t necessarily what you do, it’s how you do it. And so that’s how Kinetic started was I did know that from, you know, the traditional startup,
⁓ journey is this fake it till you make it thing. it really, really, that really bothered me. ⁓ That idea. And that’s, we did have elements of that in my last company where we were building stuff, but we hadn’t tested it to the extent of the market. Have we delivered a product? Have we supported the product in the field? Have we gone through the process of what happens if you need to return it? When do you deliver it?
So our idea around Kinetic was really start from the end and then build the company backwards. So we started with, I remember, you know, the very first day we started, I actually had a sold job. So we didn’t take investment. didn’t take anything like that. And we decided to allow the market ⁓ to guide what we’re going to do, but also to help us to learn really from the point of we’re not faking anything. We’re actually delivering that. And that became very essential.
As we were defining every time we were doing these iterations through what is kinetic, what are we doing? What’s our vision look like? Where are we trying to go? And all the challenges associated with that, I kept on going back to no matter what we do, we have to do it ethically. yeah. ⁓ So the integrity value is actually our integrity value. The way that we structure our values is a little bit different than other companies potentially, because we started at integrity and everything else is based off of that.
and the value behind it. integrity, say, know, our integrity, we live by very simple integrity values, do not lie, cheat or steal, nor to tolerate anyone who does. ⁓ Once, and then the next one is quality. And we don’t say quality because it’s, we believe, I believe, our company believes, instituted in our culture, that quality is a physical manifestation of our integrity values. So we can’t exactly say that we have high levels of integrity.
and at the same time be delivering product that’s sub standard. Then selfless service. And selfless service, once again, if we do things ethically, we’re always telling the truth and we surround ourselves with people that share the same ethical integrity values. We provide a quality product. Then when we have a discussion and then we look at it and say, are we doing this selflessly? And we look to expand that.
to everyone that the company touches, whether it’s of course amongst ourselves as employees, but really to serve our customers selflessly. And I like to say, what I tell the values in action, the discussions I’ve been having with the employees is I want our customers to know that I want things to be extremely unbalanced so that it’s not, they knew, if they looked at the books, if they looked at the value that was generated from the product that we deliver versus how much money I make,
they would go, well, this is extremely unfair. We make so much more money off of the things that you’ve delivered than what you ever made from a profit standpoint. And then, then, then, and only then, when we do it ethically, we have a quality product. We serve our customers, we serve our community, we serve our employees, and we serve those around us, including vendor suppliers. Then we can dream big and achieve great things. That’s your free now. it’s, I want to create great, wonderful things. If that is,
If that is not selfless, then that becomes really what we’re trying to do is use our customers and our employees and our suppliers to advance our own ⁓ selfish ambitions. that’s so when we get those things upside down and out of order, then things start to fall apart.
Yeah, that’s really inspiring. Thank you for sharing that. And for listeners who aren’t really familiar, what type of robotic solutions does Kinetic specialize in, and what industries do you primarily serve?
So what we do a lot of, and this is where we got started. So engineering prototyping led to a fairly large need within the space, the industry space of welding. So we needed to create tooling, workholding. There’s a lot of customization. Every automation cell, particularly welding cells, requires some level of first of the world prototyping. So that’s what we’ve centered ourselves on. We do that very well. We have a lot of experience around welding.
And as far as what particular markets we serve, we serve the United States. We do have some product in Canada ⁓ and across the United States. And what is really, really fun and what’s a blessing with being a part of the welding ⁓ portfolio and automation is that we get to serve industries across the board. exciting stuff is starting to emerge out of.
out of AI data center manufacturing components. So we’ve worked in one hand with like generator sets and helping with welding there, cooling systems for data centers. We’re working with domestic, ⁓ with suppliers for domestic ⁓ semiconductor manufacturing. So components that are involved in the manufacturing of semiconductors, not necessarily semiconductors themselves right yet, but I’d love to get-
I won’t doubt if that happens in the future for sure.
Yeah, yeah. And then we do other stuff, know, that’s transportation. Yeah, it’s really interesting. Every day is something different. We see all kinds of things, but the needs are all the same. You know, we’re looking to increase productivity. We want to scale. We’ve got a process that we’re looking to automate for one reason or another. ⁓ And we want to engage with customers that really want to see this ⁓ to help scale. So that kind of goes back to the podcast, you know, that we want to be one
of many, different elements within the drive, the industry 4.0 drive towards higher levels of automation, but then also productivity, scalability, and ultimately profitability.
For sure. And in terms of your clients, what are the biggest problems that they normally bring to you? Are they consistent pain points across these industries or when it comes to automation and robotics?
It is extremely consistent. you think, know, a lot of times you’ll say, you know, somebody will come in and say, Hey, I’m making ag tire or rims, for example. And they think, Hey, you know, we must have this really unique problem that nobody else has. on one hand, it’s like, I really appreciate that this is a pain point and the things that you’re dealing with, we want to be very, very cognizant of that. But at the same token, there’s a little bit of ⁓
There’s a little bit of salve that we can provide and say, you’re not the last. You’re the third company today that we’ve talked to with a very similar problem. And a lot of it goes around. If we look at manufacturing space just in general, there’s been a ton of automation that’s been occurring over the last really 50, 60 years in CNC control. The old bridge ports are starting to go, they’re all gone. A lot of them are gone other than for hobbies and stuff.
⁓ They’ve been replaced with automated CNC machines ⁓ and, know, ⁓ plasma cutters, AFC. So all this stuff has started to get automated. What I’ve found is that welding still is an art form and it’s not an art form that has a mainstream, ⁓ you know, a mainstream machine that kind of addresses that. And so that’s what we see time and time again is that ⁓ just had a conversation an hour or two ago with the company that says, we’re not trying to get rid of anybody.
We just want to keep up. And the certifications that are required to train welders, we’ve got amazing welders, great people, but we’ve got this product over here that doesn’t need these people. Certainly we can keep them full. That’s not the question. We want to scale our company. We want to continue to build. And the reality is it’s really, really hard to find people that would fill that particular role in the way that the current employees do.
So that’s very much a common thread is we’re not trying to get rid of anybody. We’re not trying to replace anyone. We just want to increase the productivity of the people that are on the floor. ⁓ And ⁓ we need to increase the capacity of the organization. we’re not going to do that by hiring. Even if they had a pool of people, they know that there’s a lack of skilled welding ⁓ personnel in the United States.
And so I guess that kind of leads into our next question. So how has the changing landscape like things like labor shortages, increased customization and just in time manufacturing, how has that affected ⁓ the demand for automation?
I think the more that there’s a lot of macro factors that have been happening for a long time in manufacturing in general, which is just in time manufacturing, we’re looking at how do we forecast, how do we bring things in ⁓ when we have it so that we don’t have excess stockpiles of ⁓ stuff that’s laying around. It’s efficient, that’s great. Everyone wants to do that.
But that means, you know, we start to push that upstream and say, well, if I want to get this component, then I want it just in time. Well, the component manufacturer, they all also want it just in time. And ⁓ so at some point, the bucks got to stop where we got to take them, turn raw material into parts quick. ⁓ And we need to be better at when we provide it, we need to provide very, very consistent product. So I think that’s where automation comes in. It’s we can ramp up and in some cases, I’m not going to say
all of them, there’s definitely a goal. There’s a longer term plan for eventually having lights out manufacturing where if I need to scale ⁓ to hit a just in time, or for whatever reason, short lead times, some sort of a bumpiness, ⁓ ramp up, ramp down in production, I can do this lights out manufacturing with robotics, keep the same sales force.
Make sense. So Kinetic emphasizes on time ⁓ delivery and purpose. How do you manage client expectations when you’re moving so aggressively to deliver high quality solutions?
I wish I knew that I could be an expert and tell you that this is, but it’s, know, once again, you do everything. If we, I want to kind of rely back onto our values and say, you know, when we, when we quote things, we quoted in face value. We quote, when we do estimation, we do it ⁓ in a way where we’re wanting to work collaboratively. Selfless service value drives us to select employees that are really curious. ⁓
And the biggest thing about on-time delivery that I found is the collaboration, the amount of collaboration that you have with your customer and how included are they in the process? we, feel like we do that and there’s always places to improve, but we have introspection points with our customers at least once a week as we’re developing the solution. We ask very, very specific questions.
And then we use this agile Kanban ⁓ emerging requirements approach to these projects. we risk, we take and burn down risk early. We put things in simulation whenever possible. We demonstrate working code as fast as humanly possible. ⁓ So, you know, we like to start the project with a simulation that shows what our end goal is. And we sign off iteratively along the way.
And that helps us to converge quickly and rapidly on the endpoint. And the other thing is we know, and maybe this is what other people do, I don’t know, it just works for us. But when we work with our customers, we have our facility where we set up the cell and we run it. And we’re gonna run it in whatever, if your requirement is that we wanna do a part production, approval process, we wanna do a PQR, a WPS, any of these different processes that we have.
low rate initial production, we actually set it up in our facility. We run that here, make sure it works. And then once it works, the customer signs off on it, says, sounds good, make it happen in my facility. We ship it out there, we go in, we install it, we put it together. That’s a key differentiator, I think, that we do, because we’re able to do this in usually around three to five days. And we’ll even work around going in the weekends overnight, whatever we can to accommodate for that. But…
Everything is designed upfront, knowing that we need to set it up here, tear it down, go to another location, bring it back up and start it again. ⁓ So, know, modular design, making it so that transportation, the fact that it’s going to be taken apart, put back together, ⁓ you know, making sure that we’re not going back to our initial comments. The thing that I really abhor is this fake it till you make it. And we see that.
You you’re going to get stuck in robotics project that really stinks if the first time that the whole system comes together is in your facility with your parts.
Right, right. And it gives you the opportunity to like actually, like you said, to provide the best quality products so you know how it works. You’ve tested it and you keep those values and your customers in mind, which is really great. ⁓ So let’s talk growth. How does a company like Kinetic typically bring new business? Is it mostly word of mouth or repeat customers or is it really outbound sales efforts?
So outbound sales is the least effective. ⁓ Usually somebody is not gonna go, hey, thanks for that cold call. Now I’m ready to kick off, you know, potentially sometimes a multimillion dollar automation project. of mouth is the most, well, word of mouth and repeat customer is, right now it’s mostly word of mouth as we’ve worked with customers long enough, repeat customers are starting to become ⁓ a much larger component of our sales.
And we love that. We absolutely love it. we engage with our customers the first time, the first time we meet them, ⁓ we talk and say, we would like to provide you value ⁓ so that you can do your job best and we can deal with the robot stuff. And we would like to be an extension of your team. And I think it’s been demonstrated that that’s been somewhat effective or it is being effective by a repeat customer. And we love having that very, very familiar relationship where
They know that when we say we’re gonna do something, we execute it, we execute it with quality. They can rely on us, they can trust us. And then we like to, you know, and that selfless service portion of that and the integrity value, that’s not just us, we’re also evaluating our customers. So we help to select people that are gonna promote our values. And it’s been fantastic. So like, you long story short, how are we growing? You know, really like.
we wanna take care of the people that ⁓ we’ve taken care of in the past and feel that’s really a stewardship type of thing where we take those relationships very carefully and wanna make sure that they’re in good shape. ⁓ Now, as far as scaling is at scale, this is not a business that you would wanna franchise. It’s gonna get to a point where in order to keep the quality and the integrity of what we’re doing,
we will have to be a little bit more selective as we go forward. And just making sure that it’s the right fit on both sides.
Yeah, it’s from what you’re describing, it’s really a partnership just based on your approach to touch points once a week, having the automations and everything built in your facility before you bring it over, it completely makes sense. I guess in a world of engineers, often aren’t marketers. So how has your experience been with things like digital marketing, online visibility, and content strategies, et cetera?
I would say that it is probably, it’s interesting because when you start a company, you’re thinking through all this stuff and there’s a million things. I’ve always participated at some level with some marketing people and I’m like, hard can it be? It is extremely hard. It’s a very, very difficult thing. How do you create content? The world is so…
it just completely inundated in content. There’s just constantly this bump, just nonstop bombardment with trying to pull your attention away. So you really got, for me, it’s been a struggle to, I really, really like the word of mouth portion of it. But we’re careful with our customers to say, you’re doing something and we want to protect the privacy and confidentiality of, if you don’t want to.
If you don’t want to disclose this, mean, we do understand that some of the things that we do is create extremely differentiated capabilities for customers to out compete. So when a kinetic technologies cell goes in, see it is not at all uncommon to see tens and 10Xing of productivity. So it’s kind of hard, you know, how do you communicate that? How do you communicate that in a way where you want to
Yeah, the best way to deal with this is go, hey, look what we’ve done, ⁓ and showcase that and show off some of that. But at the same time,
You want to be respectful of your clients and their needs and your product. Definitely, definitely understandable. ⁓ If you could improve one area of your sales pipeline overnight, what would it be? Are there any gaps that you are aware of, like lead flow, ⁓ nurturing, ⁓ anything that you think you could be better supported in?
definitely inbound. So the inbound portion of the sales funnel is something that we really, that’s what probably we struggle more with ⁓ generating the inbound leads. ⁓ And probably that’ll be the next problem is if the inbound gets opened up, then what about the nurturing to the closure stage? And in a business where we, I honestly would say that ⁓
Based on the nature of the business, the project, the bumpiness, just in general throughout the year, like we go through some really busy times, then we go through some times that aren’t very busy. ⁓ We have more capacity than we have sales. So sales does inbound sales in, at least for us has been a growth restriction just in general.
Right, right. ⁓ Your website’s messaging is really like highlights people, whether it’s your employees, your vendors, or even the broader community. How do you foster that sense of purpose internally, especially in the technical field? I know you touch pointed on your values and how that affects your whole company and how it’s important for you. But how do you kind of integrate that into your daily work life, I guess, and your team?
Yeah. Well, so the biggest thing is you have to if you’re you need to walk the walk is is is really the big thing. People went from an internal company. I based on my experiences with other companies I worked on, you know, I’ve realized that the impact of the leadership, particularly the owner, is you you cannot get away from.
the fact that your fingerprints are on everything. And I just had this conversation with some employees last week, know, well, actually the leadership team, you know, it’s like, hey, there are fingerprints that I leave in this company that are dirty, oily, messy, nasty fingerprints, but I need you to hold me accountable to that. we espouse to, you know, Jocko Willink, he’s really, I resonate with him, my military background.
but this idea of extreme ownership, well, you can see some of that in the back. But we talk to our employees and really work through this extreme ownership ⁓ accountability mechanism. And if I could boil this whole book, this whole concept, everything down, it’s that when something goes wrong, look in the mirror first and then say, hey, here’s what I’ve done. These are the things that I struggle with. Now, ⁓
I’d like to discuss the scenario we have. so when you play that out, when you talk openly about issues, when you discuss the fact that we don’t have it all figured out, we’re just trying to figure it out. And when we add the servitude aspect of it to, a lot of times we get into new business or new things, new industries, new verticals based on a curiosity that’s brought on by our customers. So really,
working through on a day-to-day basis and discussing openly, hey, we don’t have it figured out. We want to talk through these things. want to have these issues. We know that we’re not perfect. That then translates where employees get used to discussing tough discussions, having discussions like that, and then being able to have that discussion with the customer as well.
It makes sense. it’s a good way to run your company, especially with the partnerships with your clients, but also such technical and confidential sometimes products. So it’s great to have that openness to feel empowered enough to say, hey, I’m going to messed up, but let’s move on as a team. ⁓ Can you share a project where the Kinetic team brought your values to life, where you’re proud of and want to be
above and beyond to make your client successful.
Yeah, so we just finished a project, was it two or three weeks ago. This was a client that’s in the Western New York state. First they contacted us just about welding fixtures in general. say, hey, we’re having trouble. And as we had more conversations with this company, we realized that they were really onto something.
their market at one time they were doing import export ⁓ and they got into this data center coolant system and ⁓ they’re just building the company up from the really from it’s an older company. It’s been, they’ve got it figured out as far as keeping a company going but they aggressively attacked this new market. And as we had more conversations with them we realized just how
I ⁓ mean, it was a very, very good, you all this discussion about culture and values. Those values were really very closely aligned. ⁓ They came to us and they were open and they said, were looking for professionals. We’re looking for somebody that knows what they’re doing to help us out because we don’t know what we’re doing. And we want to have somebody that we can trust help, you know, walk us through this system. One thing led to another, and we ended up
⁓ proposing, hey, have you looked at, you know, welding automation with a robot? And they said, yeah, we have, but everyone’s told us that it’s impossible. You can’t be done by the nature of the parts. Well, we flew out, we sat down with them, we looked at it and ⁓ we said, honestly, we think we can do it. In fact, we, you know, I’ll stand by and say that we can do it. And ⁓
And then we had a proposed system and we did the same thing. We worked iteratively with them. They brought new people in, but right away that relationship is very, very close. I was texting with the project lead on the other side, back and forth on different times, keeping them in the loop of what they’re doing. We worked on them with their training, what they hadn’t done robots. So we sent them to the training that we take. We gave them the resources and the things that we did to build our own employees.
They were great customers where they also went to training. were deeply invested in it. We did the FAT and it didn’t turn out right. So they came around, but it was very, very ⁓ refreshing to be able to be very honest with them, say, hey, this is not working. We’ve identified as we put these parts in, we know why everybody said this is impossible, but we still, we know it’s possible. And they had the trust and confidence in us to have the trust.
to in the background to go, okay, we’ll keep working at it. We came to a conclusion that we needed to delay installation by a week, which to us was, we felt terrible about that, but it was a great thing to do. We wrestled with it, came to, know, did a virtual FAT where the people that came out, they saw what we said, they said, yeah, that looks good. We had to have several versions of that before they felt good. ⁓ We broke everything down on a
Friday, Thursday, put it on a truck, sent the guys out on a Sunday to Buffalo and went in three days later, it was installed. The fourth day we were running parts. ⁓ Fifth day we observed them running parts and it’s really been a fantastic ⁓ project overall, you know, as they’re building stuff in.
And we continue on a, you know, we’ve got a one-year service ⁓ agreement with them where we’re going to continue to stay with them as their ⁓ automation provider. But, you know, it goes through and checks the box. I mean, they, from a value standpoint, they’re a fantastic company. ⁓ They pay well, they pay on time, but no, but they also are just, you know, they’re open, they’re honest, they’re honest of their capabilities, they’re asking for help. ⁓
You know, and then when we go through the project, they’re engaged, they’re accountable, ⁓ they’re responsive. Once it came in, they really owned it. They own the training portion of it. They own the installation of the cell. And then they’re proud of having it. ⁓ you know, we’re seeing their parts when that’s one of those 10X, know, so they, productivity increased by, you know, they part that took, you know, X divide that by 10. That’s what it takes currently.
⁓ so, it’s super excited. That’s one of those things that, you know, was really fulfilling for me as an owner. Cause I’m like, I am so thankful that this is going to be so unbalanced. I want you to pay this sell off and be profitable within less than a year. And that’s what we want to see. want to see customers are like, that was the easiest decision ever in hindsight. I’m thankful. I’m thankful I did. I made the investment and it’s been a great relationship, good friendship, a good partnership with the company.
That’s amazing. what’s next for kinetic technologies? there industries or emerging technologies that you’re excited to move into? Or how do you see the future?
Yeah, so we of course want to double down on the welding technology. And as we’re growing, you we started off, we didn’t know much. mean, our first project was, it didn’t go, it wasn’t that great. I look back on it go, my goodness, how far we’ve come since then. So I really am invested as a company in the ongoing continuing to stay ⁓ active in the places where we’re building competencies. So we’re bringing on, ⁓
new partners that provide AI-based ⁓ solutions for welding. ⁓ That partnership, I’m really excited about doing that. But then also continuing to really get deep dive into the welding space so that we can offer to our customers technology that’s differentiated. And then what I’d like to do is take what we’ve done in welding and start to replicate that in other use cases as they present themselves. So what we’re seeing is that some of our customers
our existing customers like, thanks for doing the welding stuff. Would you guys would be interested in potentially doing, you know. So within the robot verticals, there’s pick and place, machine tending, palletizing, welding. ⁓ You know, in hindsight, welding is probably one of the more complicated applications, but it’s been fantastic because it gives us the experience and the breadth.
So that as we start to go down the line, we can do some other use cases.
That’s amazing. Well, Mark, thank you so much for your time and you shared with us and your insights and experience and vision ⁓ with us today. Your commitment to values and leadership and obviously quality and support for your clients is absolutely amazing. And it’s an eye opener. We truly appreciate it. I know our listeners will walk away with a better understanding of what it takes to grow in manufacturing and how to actually run your team. So thanks again for joining us and for everybody listening. And we’ll hope to see you on the next episode of Growth Challenges for Manufacturers.
Thankyou, Katherine.
In this episode of "Growth Challenges for Manufacturers," host Katherine Seymour of MacRAE’S sits down with Mark Barglof, President and Owner of Kinetic Technologies LLC, to explore how ethical leadership and innovative robotics are transforming the manufacturing landscape.
In an era where manufacturing faces unprecedented challenges—from labor shortages to increasing demand for customization—companies like Kinetic Technologies LLC are stepping up to bridge the gap between human expertise and automated efficiency. Mark Barglof, President and Owner of Kinetic Technologies, shares insights about his company's unique approach to robotic solutions and how they're helping manufacturers overcome their growth challenges.
Contact us to explore how we can help your business grow.
