To provide the proper level of support for customers in the Americas, Mikkelsen Innovation ApS has registered and started its U.S. subsidiary, FASTSEWN, Inc., located in Milwaukee, WI. In addition to the U.S. sales and management team, Steve Aranoff (Chief Business Officer) and Jim Manelski (Director of Sales, Americas), whom many in the industry already know, industry veteran Ranjan Singh has now joined as COO for FASTSEWN, Inc. Part of the engineering team is also in Milwaukee, bringing the number of U.S. employees to six so far.
Ranjan Singh has been working in the industry for many years, having spent much time at QuadTech, which was a subsidiary of Quad Graphics. There he ran the entire worldwide aftermarket business, including service, parts and technical support. He was also head of Manufacturing, Support, Training and Aftermarket at Mikkelsen Converting Technology (MCT), where he contributed significantly to improving its system design and manufacturing efficiency. After MCT, Ranjan managed key large-scale networking projects, but is happy to be back working with his former colleagues and getting his “hands dirty” supporting customers while managing FASTSEWN’s physical growth in the Americas. He is now building a team for purchasing, assembly, test and support for the new operation in Milwaukee.
Milwaukee was chosen for three important reasons:
- It is centrally located with good air service through both Chicago and Milwaukee airports.
- The founding team’s prior company, MCT, had good manufacturing and parts procurement
contacts in the Milwaukee area, whom the team continues to work with and who are known
to meet the required quality and delivery standards. - Olympus Group has offered space at its Milwaukee facility following the sale of its U.S. flag
product line.
As FASTSEWN StitchNCut is still a new technology for most of the industry, being located at
Olympus Group, one of FASTSEWN’s initial customers, gives the U.S. team the unique opportunity
to share progress with Olympus’ Milwaukee team on a continuing basis and to utilize their
FASTSEWN™ production system(s), once installed, for demonstrations, so prospects can see the
system running in real production, not just in a demonstration environment. For the company, having close contact with a working customer is a real benefit, as it is also for Olympus from a system support standpoint.
