HK/Dematic acquisition is complete

Park City, Utah: The HK Systems shirts were changed to Dematic on Tuesday at Supply Chain Reset, the annual logistics conference sponsored by HK Systems, newly acquired by Dematic.

John Baysore, president and CEO of Dematic North America, described part of the thinking behind the acquisition as well as some of the potential benefits for end users during remarks on Tuesday morning.

The genesis of the acquisition came out of a series of off-site strategic planning sessions last year. At those sessions, Dematic developed an approach to the market it has dubbed 4 walls and 2 windows. The concept is that Dematic solutions can control the material handling activities within the four walls of the plant, warehouse or distribution center; those systems will also have visibility through two windows into the supply chain of upstream and downstream activities, such as transportation events or customer demand, that will impact the processes inside a facility.

“We want to be able to do everything that goes on inside a facility,” Baysore said. “At the same time, we identified our shortcomings as a solution provider and asked how can we add the products we need to get to where we want to be. That led us to HK.”

As Baysore explained, HK Systems was a company with best-in-class solutions for the inbound and pallet handling window while Dematic had best-in-class solutions for the outbound case, tote and piece handling side of the window. Both companies had strong software offerings. “We believe our innovative products and solutions will be stronger,” he said.

Going forward, Baysore said that Dematic will continue to invest significant R&D resources into the after-market, developing maintenance and parts solutions that will make existing products last longer.

In addition, service parts for both companies will be shipped out of logistics hub in Memphis. The combined companies will also now have regional and resident service coverage to 55 cities, which allows quick response to some 1,800 installed systems.

“In this instance, we believe that one plus one will equal more than two for our customers,” he said.