Kai Li with Mean Well USA

SUMMARY KEYWORDS MDM West, industrial innovation, power supplies, automation, medical devices, LED lighting, product manager, market feedback, R&D team, sustainable development, distribution network, AI revolution, power electronics, manufacturing process, customer solutions. 00:00 Hey, this episode of Industrial Talk is proudly brought to you by MD&M West and the incredible News and Brews team. MD&M West delivered big medtech, automation, packaging, plastics, and design all came together under one roof.

The innovation, the energy, the conversation - it was everything that makes this industry extraordinary. I was on the floor capturing the stories, the breakthroughs, and the leaders who are shaping the future. Thanks for tuning in and celebrating the people driving industrial innovation. Industrial Talk powered by MD&M West and the News and Brews team.

00:47 Welcome to the Industrial Talk podcast with Scott MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting-edge, industry-focused innovations and trends, while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving, so put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go. All 01:05 right, once again, welcome to Industrial Talk. Thank you very much for joining the number one industrial-related podcast in the universe that celebrates industry professionals all around the world.

You are bold, brave, you dare greatly, you innovate, you collaborate, you are solving problems each and every day. That's why we celebrate you on Industrial Talk. You are the heroes in this story. Thank you for your continued support of telling the story of manufacturers.

We are here broadcasting MD&M West. It is brought to you by those wonderful people at Informa, and we're part of also the News and Brews team, telling the story of manufacturers, all in this. This is an outstanding event, and I'm telling you right now, if you're not here, you're missing out. If you are here, you're not missing out.

And if you aren't here, you need to put this on your calendar, because you know why. You get great people like Kylie, that's right. The company is MEAN WELL, and you're saying to yourself, I don't even know where we're going with that, and I don't either. Join me for this journey, and we're gonna have a great conversation.

All right, let's get cracking. Okay, how are you doing? Yeah, 02:15 hi. 02:16 Great, you're doing, having a good show.

02:20 Yeah, the show's been fantastic. 02:22 Why? 02:22 Because I'm seeing the food traffic this year has improved over the last years. Are 02:27 you in this?

Are you in this stuff, whatever building? 02:30 Yeah, you're in 02:31 this building. Okay, good. 02:32 Yeah, I am.

02:33 Because I don't know, but you think the traffic has improved. Have you been? How many times you've been here? 02:38 Probably five, six years now.

02:40 Shut up. 02:41 Yeah, we were, we were at the MDM side, the medical side, before, and then we slowly shifted our way towards the ATX side, or the medical, the industrial side, the automation. Yeah, 02:55 but you still, you're still in the medical. 02:57 We do everything, 03:00 because you MEAN WELL.

03:02 Yeah, 03:02 whatever that means. You MEAN WELL. That's outstanding. All right, let's level set there.

Kai, give us a little background on who you are, your little background. We just need to, we need to know why you're such a great professional. Talk to us. 03:18 All right.

Hi, hi everyone. I'm Kai, and I'm the product manager at Meanwhile USA, and I've been with Meanwhile for almost 10 years now. I started as a field applications engineer. 03:28 I just want to make sure that we're all understanding.

He started at age 1011, 11, yeah. Well, I was just off, just by one. Very good. So, continue, 03:40 yeah, and I think it's I moved into the product manager role because I love solving issues, so providing solutions to customers, and I think BMPM is able to understand the market better, able to feedback to our headquarters to develop the products that will help solve the issues that we see that in North America.

04:00 Okay, I have to ask the questions. What are we talking about? What problems does Meanwell solving? Tell us what the give us the pain and the pain point, and give us why Meanwell fits and solves that pain.

04:13 Yeah, definitely. Meanwhile, we are the world leading power supply manufacturer. We do standards having a conversation 04:20 about power spike, continue. Yeah, 04:21 yeah, we do standard power supplies, and we were in everything - we're in the industrial equipment, wearing medical devices, wearing LED lighting.

So, you may not recognize the meanwhile name, but we actually MEAN WELL, right? Right, we're in everywhere, and we pride ourselves as the hidden champion. We are not well known, but you know, we support all these devices. Power supply is the heart of all electric devices.

Without the power supply, nothing can run on electricity, so that's what we pride ourselves on. And we solve issues by, as I mentioned earlier, I study the market, visit customers, learn their pain. Points, what they need, they need the power supplies to be smaller, higher reliability, or lower leakage current to have higher protection levels, et cetera, et cetera. So I'll feed back those information to the development team to develop products dedicated to this market.

And furthermore, about two three years ago, we created a subsidiary in Kansas City, Missouri, called Meanwhile Power Solutions, and we are dedicated to providing solutions instead of just a power component. We will provide a solution, a power solution to our customers, where they don't need to worry about how to integrate the power supply components, or worry about the compliances, worry about the time to market. We will take their requirements and we will develop a plug and play turnkey solution for them.

So that's what the mission for the Meanwhile Power Solution team is to help solve the customers' issues with, you know, they don't want to spend time on 05:59 no on 06:00 power supplies, right? They want to focus on their next generation laser, or whatever high tech they're working on. So, we will take the effort and help them design a power solution that actually fits them perfectly, so that they can just drop into their equipment and power it. 06:17 How do you, as a company, stay nimble?

Because it's changing, you know, as well as I do. You've been coming here for 10 years, you've seen a lot of changes happening now. There's.. it's just seems so..

it's so dynamic. How does a company like Meanwell keep up with, you know, the.. you got to keep your head on a swivel, 06:37 yeah? 06:38 Jealous.

06:38 And I think with Joking, side, you know, something that never changes, and meanwhile, is that it's always changing. 06:43 It's always changing. I can't imagine. Yeah, and 06:46 a large portion of that is we have a very aggressive and capable RD team in overseas, and also in the US, and we launch over, you know, we currently have over 15,000 standard SKUs, standard off-the-shelf power supplies.

No other manufacturers able to provide that. And we're 07:07 15,000 07:10 yeah, 15,000 standard SKUs that we manufacture and stock. 07:14 Oh, 07:15 yeah, for parts of continue, yeah. No, and I think we are still, we're not slowing down, and we're still aiming to develop, but we're aiming to add roughly 15% skew every year, and then we 07:29 15% it's so okay.

So the market is demanding that, 07:34 yeah, correct. It is 07:35 just you're not going to add 15% skew unless there's a market there, so yeah, it, 07:42 yeah, yeah, we, of course, we will also obsolete some older products once a drop-in replacement is available, 07:49 yeah, 07:50 but one of the one of the reason we're, we're keeping up this rapid development is also with recent trends and changes in the applied power electronics world, where you know there's talks of gallium nitride, silicon carbide technologies used in power conversions.

So our RD team is also on that, and we're developing the power supply products that will meet the latest markets requirements. Yeah, 08:16 I have to go down that road. You just sort of rattled off some big names, multi-syllable names. What, what did you just say?

08:24 So, selenium carbide and gallium nitride, so those are new semiconductor materials. That's got it. Yeah. Thank you.

08:33 Appreciate that. Now I don't feel so, so inadequate and dull. 08:38 No. 08:39 So with that, how you, you got to manufacture this stuff, 08:46 correct?

Where 08:47 do you manufacture it? And how do you, because you're in, you're interested, you're, you're a manufacturer of things that are manufacture, uh, helping manufacturers on that. How does your manufacturing process keep up with that. How do you change?

How do you? How do you do that? I don't know. 09:05 I think the main component is reliable relationship, and not so.

Meanwhile, over 80% of our business comes from customers that's been with us for over 15 years, and not just the customers, but also the suppliers we build very long term relationship with our suppliers, so a few years back during the COVID, and then the passive component shortage. Meanwhile, is still able to get a steady support and supply from our suppliers, and if there's any new technology, our suppliers are very willing to work with Meanwhile to develop something that we need, where the market needs.

09:43 Yeah, because I mean, this is something that always challenges my brain. It's because the market is in demand and requiring change and requiring new innovations and new technologies, and that demand is. Strong, right? 10:01 Yes, 10:02 the manufacturing side, like what you guys produce, it's you just can't say, 'Oh, I can't get it to you' or something.

You just have to really be connected to the market and be able to be adapt to the needs of that market rapidly, so you have that infrastructure all ready to go. Where do you see it going? What's that future look like? What, what's what's on that plate?

And tell us about that. 10:32 I think the future for power electronics is only going to get bigger, more grand, and part of the reasoning is, you know, the revolution with AI and everything, and everything is going to depend, demand a lot more power, and that's what we do. We supply the power, the power supplies, right. So there are revolutionary technologies and innovations, not only in the, you know, the AI, the market, but also in the power electronics.

Meanwhile, we are very active in attending all these, you know, power electronics conferences as well, and we are doing our best to keep up with the technology. Yeah, 11:11 the challenge is, is that if I look out and I just, just look right, and if you see everything's lit up, everything has a power supply requirement. I, it's, it's endless, 11:24 correct. 11:25 How does, how does MEAN WELL?

Just sort of, this is, this is where we, this is where we focus, because it could be anything, I mean, anything. Yeah, power supply, right here, everything. How do you, how do you maintain sort of that discipline on the focus of where you need to be, 11:42 I think that's also what sets Meanwhile apart from our competitors, is you know our competitors, they may specialize in a special field or specific type of power supplies for very specific industries, but meanwhile our product development is driven by our PM team, it's not driven by specific customers, so when we develop a product, a new product, we always keep the broader audience in mind, where you know we will consider, can our distributors sell this product, can this fit our existing customers, or can they use them to their benefits?

So we design, we're in virtually all kinds of market, like, as I mentioned earlier, we're in, you know, automation, medical LED lighting, yeah, everything. So we don't just specialize in one thing, we don't put off our eggs in one basket, basically. 12:31 So let's say I'm a distributor, 12:33 right? Yeah, 12:34 and here comes meanwhile, I got this tsunami of options here.

How do you keep your distributors educated, and yeah, hey, here's a new one. 12:47 Yeah, go for 12:48 it. Find a new market, whatever. Find those customers.

12:51 Meanwhile, we host a high quantity of trainings, both CLM webinars, and we also fire our technical team, or PM team, myself personally. We go to our distributors to host trainings for them, and we also have in North America, we have two large events every year for our distributor partners, where we invite, so one is earlier in the year, which is, we call the distributor meeting, where we talk about the commercial side of things, where meanwhile it's going, where you guys should be investing, or what market you guys should be going to, and then later in the year, the second half is what we call the technical seminar, and we invite their FAES, their engineers, their, you know, sales team to our facility, or to our location, and then we will educate them on the new products, the new applications.

How do you put them to use? How do you benefit customers? So, yeah, we do a lot of cooperations with our distributors. 13:49 Do you do you tap into that distributor base and saying, hey, what have what are people saying?

13:57 Yeah, definitely. And because, meanwhile, we actually rely heavily on our distribution network to our sales channel, is one of our biggest strengths. Over 70% of our sales revenue comes from distribution, so we have about 260 over 260 distributors worldwide. So, yeah, it's..

we definitely, yeah, it's bi-directional, right? We educate them, and we also get information from them. 14:23 Yeah, that makes one last question before we wrap it up. I need to know what, what, what gets you excited about the future of meanwhile?

What does that future look like? 14:37 I think it's the sustainability, and because meanwhile we have good intentions, and we've actually transformed from the meanwhile group to the SDG group, the Sustainable Development Group, where we are incorporating nowadays more than just power supplies, we are transforming from a component supplier to a solutions provider, so I think that's what's most exciting. You 15:00 like it, man. Kai, how do people get a hold of you?

They're saying, "I want to know more about power supplies. How do you let us know? 15:07 Yeah, feel free to visit our website@www.meanwell.

com And then we have the contact us information there, and you can also email us or call our sales offices. We have sales offices worldwide and North America. What about 15:20 you, Kai, on LinkedIn? 15:22 Yeah, you can follow me on LinkedIn, and my email, my personal email is Kai.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's 15:28 LinkedIn. Don't worry about it. Yeah, you can feel, yeah, outstanding. All right, his name is Kai.

You need to reach out to him. All the contact information will be out on Industrial Talk, and you will not be disappointed. As you can tell, he knows what he's talking about. News and brews is a part of the groove that we're a part of.

We're at MD&M West. It is great conference. Put this on your calendar, meet people like Kai, solve problems, and just live a happy life, because you want to MEAN WELL. And there's a company that will definitely help you do that.

All right, we're going to wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned, we will be right back. 16:00 You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network, 16:11 that was MD&M West, as you can tell, as you listened to the podcast, Kai Delivered MEAN WELL in his LinkedIn stack, MEAN WELL USA Inc, yeah, they're global, you know, they're global anyway. So you're wandering around MD&MS, brought to you by those wonderful people at Informa, and you're wandering around and you realize how massive manufacturing is, how incredible it is.

It's so amazing, and how innovation is transforming manufacturers to deliver higher quality. Just having uptime, everything, everything is there at MD&M West. Just wander around, and you look, and your, your eyes are just starry-eyed. It's amazing.

It's an amazing time. Put that one on your calendar for next year. It's in Anaheim. It will not disappoint, because they're absolutely amazing, and an amazing, amazing conference.

So, put that on your calendar. Industrial talk is here for you. There are two things, three things. Let's go with two first, and then maybe I can think of a third one.

Two things: one, you need to tell your story, you need to succeed. You go to these events, and you realize how much it's important to be able to tell your story. You need to tell your story. You need to put a face to that solution, so tell your story, and then two, you need to market it.

You need to market it well. You need to be fast, you need to be nimble, and, and that's what industrial talk does. We support that next generation of industrial leaders, and to do that, we need to tell that story. So you go out to industrial talk, you want to talk to me, you just sort of say click, talk to me, talk to me, full-fledged marketing and media company, right here, so just you know it's all good.

Reach out to Kai. Meanwhile, is the company MD&M West part of the news and brews crew, and you will not be disappointed. We have another great conversation shortly, so stay tuned.