Marko Koorneef is planning for growth

With the crops planted for the spring and tariffs offering the potential to suppress competition from abroad, Marko Koorneef, president of Boy Machines Inc., had reason for optimism as he looked to the summer. 

It’s been a tough year for Boy, a Germany-based maker of small-tonnage injection molding machines, but despite numbers reminiscent of the 2008 downturn, Koorneef said he believes the U.S. political landscape is creating traction for manufacturing. The leader of the company’s American operation, based near Philadelphia,  

Koorneef spoke about his career with senior staff reporter Karen Hanna in mid-May, shortly after the White House announced a detente in its trade war with the U.K. and dropped tariff rates on goods imported from China from 145 percent to 30 percent.  

Tell me a little bit about how you got into plastics. 

Koorneef: That was pretty easy. My dad was the president of Kiefel in Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), and I was supposed to take over the subsidiary. 

When I graduated with my master’s degree in engineering, I went to Germany for training. It was supposed to be for a year, but the president of Kiefel asked me if I was interested in going to the United States. I was 20, 21 years old, and I said, “Absolutely, what do I have to lose?” 

So, Kiefel sent me to the United States. It was a small office. They just did a million, million and a half [in sales]; there were only three people. I worked the automotive industry and started to build it up, get a stronghold for Kiefel.  

You’re in your second stint at Boy. What brought you back?  

Koorneef: I was working with Technoplast and Trinity [extrusion companies], and Boy made me an offer. That's how I started with Boy in 2010, and then, after [about] seven years, I got a call from a headhunter who made me a very attractive offer. That was for Battenfeld-Cincinnati. I took that opportunity. And then, after two years, apparently things weren’t going too good with Boy. The person that took my position here, things didn’t work out. So I got a call from the owners, from Dr. Boy, and they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. 

What do you see as Boy’s niche? 

Koorneef: We’re concentrating on the small-tonnage, small-footprint machines, high-precision, high- technology. That is our niche. 

How is that market right now? 

Koorneef: Like everything else, [it’s] down. The numbers for the last two years are lower or about the same that it was in 2008, when the economy crashed. That was bad, and we’re about the same numbers here.  

How do you navigate a period such as this? 

Koorneef: We’re keeping our costs under control; therefore, we’re able to compete in the market and keep our prices very competitive. Our sales guys have done a good job this time around, to gain a little bit more market share in a down industry, and that made it still come out to be a positive year. 

What’s your outlook going forward? 

Koorneef: I think with the new administration, manufacturing is going to go up because they’re doing everything they can to get manufacturing up, to get oil prices down. If oil prices are down, plastic prices come down. It becomes easier to increase demand for certain products. If more manufacturing is needed, more machines are needed, and everything goes up. 

People seem to be a little bit more optimistic. Activity is up. Our sales, we had a very good month. I attribute that a little bit to the panic around the tariffs. People were eager to pull the trigger in the hope that they wouldn’t get hit by tariffs, which they didn’t. I believe in the next two months, sales are going to be down because of tariffs, because everybody has to pass on the tariffs that are applied. [As of mid-May, the tariff rate on Boy machines, which are made in Germany, was 10 percent.] However, if it’s only going to last 90 days, and now they have a deal with England, which I think is a good deal for both countries, it seems that really opens up trade. And I hope this might be a sign for the rest of the world to see what the possibilities are, that it actually doesn’t have to be a negative thing. It could be actually a positive thing for both countries that are involved. If that happens, I see this year becoming a good year. It's going to come back up. 

What about the tariffs on products imported from China?  

Koorneef: [Tariffs on] China actually help us, because our Chinese competitors are now becoming a lot more expensive, so it’s a lot easier for all the European injection molding manufacturers to compete against the Chinese. The higher Chinese tariffs make it easier. We’ll see what it all brings. 

What do you think brings customers to Boy?  

Koorneef: I take high pride in customer service. We work here every day to do what we can to satisfy our customers, their customers’ needs. We’re easy, accessible. Customers can reach out to me, and I’ll try to do what I can to help them. We’re not a big organization where the president is hiding behind his telephone and computer. I actually have interaction with customers every day and get things done for the customer, trying to get them up and running as fast as I possibly can if they have questions, [so they] have a competent conversation partner. 

How many installed machines do you have here? 

Koorneef: A little over 8,000 in the United States alone. 

What are the most important innovations you’ve seen, and where do you think that the future goes, especially for these smaller, more precise machines? 

Koorneef: I think one of the things that has had the most merit is Industry 4.0. On a cycle-to-cycle basis, data from the machine is being transferred to an EMS (execution management) system, where customers collect data. Data becomes a lot more transparent, especially in the medical industry, where it’s important to have data readily available from part to part. If something happens in the field, it becomes a lot easier for [manufacturers] to go back and say, “What happened to that batch, or what happened to this, what happened to that?” Now, there’s a little bit of a standard. It’s Euromap 77 and Euromap 82 communication protocols. With those standards, it makes it more affordable and easier to implement. 

Who’s driving that demand? Does it come from your customers, or do you try to be out in front of it?  

Koorneef: We’re trying to be out in front where we have customers that have asked for it. We have customers that have implemented it. It’s becoming more of a request as time goes on. 

What do you think might be the next big technological advance? 

Koorneef: Right now, a lot of our customers are having a hard time getting qualified employees to work with injection molding machines. A lot of people during COVID retired, and now that’s starting to [be] more of a demand for manufacturing, manufacturing jobs coming back, they’re having a hard time getting people. As the younger generation doesn’t want to sit in a factory, the humanoids that are being built right now, once they get released in the market, you’re probably going to start seeing more factories using humanoids.  

We have customers that are using cobots, which is the first generation of simplified automation. Instead of having an operator stacking parts, a cobot is doing that. But I think, with the release of humanoids, hopefully in the next year, there’s going to be a demand for those robots to fill those manufacturing jobs. 

A lot of the younger generation, they don’t want to stand in a factory anymore. In the old days, for my parents, when I started in the plastics industry, every factory was full of people just doing pick, pack and stacking and operating machines. People were happy to get those jobs because they all came from the farms, had to work hard, so this was a walk in the park. In a factory, you’re sitting down and you’re just doing what you need to do, and that was it, then you go home. Now, with the newer generation, they’re raised completely different. Here in the U.S., they really don’t want those jobs. So, I think we’re going to be forced into the automation. Customers have automated production cells, but I think the next step is going to be putting humanoids to work.  

We want to get more manufacturing here. We want machine builders to continue to sell machines. It’s just the labor force is going to look a little different. 

People have brought up the European approach, Germany’s apprenticeship system, as a way of addressing some of the workforce issues. You don’t see that as a possible solution? 

Koorneef: We have an apprenticeship here at Boy as well, here in the U.S., but it’s all technical. It’s about maintaining the machines, maintaining the automation. That’s where I see a lot of kids going into the workforce, [is for] maintaining and servicing and repairing the automated equipment, equipment repair. I do believe that, but that’s not manufacturing jobs. I do believe that the higher-skilled people to keep the machines, the humanoids, computers, to keep all that stuff going, there we do believe there’s a future. And also for the United States, a lot more engineers will be needed.  

What about the role of sustainability? How does that factor into discussions at Boy? 

Koorneef: I think it’s going to be from industry to industry different. In the medical industry and the automotive industry, those you need durable plastics because you don’t want a car to fall apart over the years. Same as in the medical industry, you need reliable plastics for health reasons. For packaging, I do see that’s going to get more and more into biodegradable, where, after a certain amount of years, that plastic is going to be completely gone. And from our machines’ perspective, as long as you can injection mold it, it doesn’t matter what it is. 

So, I’m not really too concerned, because everything has a spot; everything has a position. I think over time, if we all want to do the right thing for the environment, we’re going to get there.  

What do you like to do outside work? 

Koorneef: I have a barn and small farm. No animals, it’s too small, but we have crops. It’s just being outside, being on the tractor, working the land.  

I enjoy it and building stuff in the barn, welding and woodworking ... or work on cars, rebuild cars, fix tractors. Fix them up and then sell them, just a hobby. 

The barn is big enough that I can do different projects at the same time. So I enjoy it. 

Any particular cars you’ve fixed up? 

Koorneef: I had a Ferrari ... a little Ferrari I kept a little bit longer to drive around because that was a fun car to drive.  

Is everything planted now?  

Koorneef: I’m just helping my wife trying to get the land on the farm, get it all cultivated, built up ... small stuff, boring stuff, but it needs to get done. We just [planted] over the weekend ... zucchini, all different types of tomatoes, peppers ... but she still wants to plant more, so we’re going have to get going.  

Any advice you’d give to someone younger coming up in the same sort of career path as you? 

Koorneef: For me, I’ve always enjoyed what I do, so it’s never been work. So, if you don’t like what you do, then go do something else. 

What have you enjoyed about working in plastics? 

Koorneef: Well, I’m an engineer, and every day it’s different. There’s a new problem that needs to be solved. And I just love the interaction with customers, [to] see all different kinds of manufacturing plants. I just enjoy it, always have. Especially when I was younger, there was a lot of travel, obviously, yeah, so I saw a lot of different places, a lot of different countries, and that made it extra interesting. 

What would you like your legacy to be? How would you like people to think of you? 

Koorneef: I would like them to think that I was a very hardworking person and always wanted to do the right thing.