Executive Interview
Executive Interviews
An Interview with
Mickael Bouffaut
Kaertech
Founder and CEO
KAERTECH provides full turnkey services with state-of-the-art product design and advanced manufacturing services and has a deep Consumer Electronics & IoT experience, designing Connected Objects with Agile Manufacturing capabilities and Effective Production systems.
Publish Date:
13 January 2021
Philippines
Location:
Tell us about your background, and how you came to found your company?
I started as an Electronic and computer science engineer. Developed a lot of wireless products, managed engineer teams in Europe as well as company operations. I managed project for multinationals in Asia and fell in love with Singapore and Hong Kong. I decided then to definitively move there and open Kaertech with my partners in Hong Kong in 2009. Keartech is a company with foundation based on my original knowledge and capabilities which are product design and manufacturing.
What is most important to you and your organization – mission, vision, or core values? Why?
We focus on delivering customers what they really need and have difficulties to find with other suppliers. Those are:
1- Transparency: We provide customers full visibility on our pricing in order for them to be able to make fast decisions and to be sure they won’t have bad surprises during the project.
2- Customer satisfaction: everything we do in Kaertech is really focused on this aspect. We will judge our performance on how well we satisfy our customers’ needs and be guided by the belief that our customers will ultimately determine how successful we will be.
3- “Right the first time” and continuous improvement: We think very carefully about the product and how it should be before we start to develop a new product. We really try our best to anticipate all aspects of the product (manufacturing, aftersales…) at the first stage of product development. We try to avoid proceeding by trial and errors and try to make it correct the first time.
Can you explain briefly how your service(s)/product(s) works?
We utilize the newest manufacturing equipment, combined with our in-house shop floor solutions, to provide our clients with real-time visibility of their product’s lifecycle. Kaertech also boasts a full system integration assembly line with surface mount technology capabilities to showcase its advanced manufacturing competencies.
We have fully integrated product design team that really have a manufacturing vision of the product which make a very smooth transition to mass production as all those aspects had been integrated during development stage.
How has the industry been changing in recent years?
The electronic manufacturing industry has not changed much, but the products we are manufacturing have. And those new products are more demanding in terms of miniaturisation, traceability, efficiency. We always have to be ready for new processes, and how our competitors are evolving. We want to be as efficient as possible and be able to guarantee the best quality and reliability.
We keep ourself on top of every innovation related to manufacturing technologies and equipment. We are only using the most advanced on the market in order to be able to provide the best service to our customers.
The biggest trends today revolve around Internet of Things (IoT). Everything is expected to be wirelessly connected, and Kaertech have very strong experiences in developing wireless products.
What makes you different from what’s currently available in the market?
We utilize the newest manufacturing equipment, combined with our in-house shop floor solutions, to provide our clients with real-time visibility of their product’s lifecycle.
We support enterprises with systems and electrical design expertise, whereby our team of architects and engineers from various parts of the world creates a holistic customer experience. They provide comprehensive support during the early development stages of a product, refining and optimizing its design for best performance.
By being involved in product development, we can contribute by defining the best architecture for our customers’ products.
What does the future hold for your company?
Kaertech can be consider as a startup in the world of electronic manufacturing (EMS, OEM, ODM). We have have significantly developed since our creation in 2009 but the way in front of us has much more to bring than what we have already done. We are currently at the rampup of the company and we hope it will continue in this way for a few year until we stabilize to a size that will satisfy our shareholders without sacrificing the quality of service we aim to provide.
The company is recently focusing on new trent which is healthtech. We believe this domain has a great future and we hope we will be right taking that path.