EKRA's Steve Hall

CA: How has the merger of EKRA and ASYS been so far?
SH: The merger has been very smooth.  In a short period of time the ASYS Group has been able to bring stability back to the EKRA organization.  The manufacturing operation is once again hitting on all cylinders, which has allowed us to bring down our lead times and the combination of the worldwide support groups of EKRA and ASYS has enhanced our ability to support our customers.
 
CA: How will the businesses be structured?
SH: The ASYS Group is the legal entity that is over both companies.  In the end the two businesses, EKRA and ASYS, will remain as separate entities and both brand names will be maintained. Both companies have very strong brand recognition within the worldwide market, so it only makes sense to continue to leverage that strength. All screen-printing systems will be marketed under the EKRA brand and all handling systems, marking systems and routers will be marketed under the ASYS brand.
 
CA: What, if anything, will occur on the R&D front?
SH: There will certainly be a sharing of knowledge and technologies from both companies and the merger has definitely provided new energy to the EKRA R&D group.  However, the R&D staff will not be merged. We are seeing the results already. At Productronica we will introduce the 5II screen printer and over the next few months the entire product line will be redesigned.
 
MB: ASYS makes printers for LTCC applications; EKRA focuses on SMT. How will this play out?
SH: All printing systems will be marketed under the EKRA brand name. EKRA and ASYS actually already have strong product lines for the hybrid, solar and LTCC markets. They will be merged to enhance the capabilities in those areas. In those cases, the ASYS products will be marketed under the EKRA brand name. 
 
CA: Could we expect to see anything different specific to the software or vision systems, for example?
SH: There are certainly technologies from both companies that will be leveraged. We are all very excited about those possibilities and there definitely will be new options and features that will be added to the EKRA product line for 2006.
 
CA: How are sales and service going to be handled?
SH: There are no plans to merge the sales and service groups. However, there are regional synergies throughout the worldwide market where one company is stronger than the other in regards to infrastructure or capability. In those cases, those synergies will definitely be leveraged. In the end, this is the best-case scenario for our customers. The combined strength of the ASYS Group companies provides one of the largest and most capable organizations in the market today.