Kai Beckhaus of MCJ Supply Chain Solutions discusses the intricacies of learning how to interweave IoT, robotics, and the human element in manufacturing. Danny: All right. So let's jump into today's executive series. I have Kai Beckhaus who is the president at MCJ Supply Solutions. Thank you so much Kai, for joining me today on the IndustrialSage executive series. Kai: Thanks for having me, Danny. Danny: Excellent. So, for those who aren't familiar and we were just kind of chatting a little bit, before we started here. Tell me a little bit about MCJ Supply Chain Solutions. You've got a little bit of a joint venture going on there, so yeah. Who are you guys? What do you guys do? Kai: We're bringing Jungheinrich supply chain solutions to the North American market. Jungheinrich is one of the world's leading intralogistics companies based out of Hamburg in Germany and is cooperating for more than 10 years with Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift America, to bring forklift truck solutions and that's mainly electric trucks to the North American market. And almost two years ago now, Mitsubishi, Caterpillar, and Jungheinrich have decided to build up a joint venture to bring automation and further supply chain solutions, which also include a specialized rental fleet here to the market. And that's why MCJ is bringing AGVs, our robots here, to our customers in the US, Canada and Mexico. Danny: All right. Excellent. So, we're going to dive into this, a little bit more as we get it, but right now I kind of want to learn a little bit more about you, Kai. I want to learn about your, your background, your career, how you got into this. How, tell me, you know, take me way back. How did you get into this space? Kai: Yeah, perfect. I actually have a software background there. So as a teenager that was a hobby and that's my backbone. And then I attended the university, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and also a year at Imperial college in London with a focus on economics, computer science and law that was a combination course there. And after that, I added a PhD in Munich, as I wanted us to really see, to combine the practical aspects of the world with the theoretical university things that I learned there, and at the Technical University in Munich there, it was a good time, doing the PhD. My start after internships was Nokia Networks and the Boston consulting group really, in the worlds of real work whilst as a freelancer for a marketing agency in London. Danny: Oh, really? Kai: Right. I think it's a really interesting sector, still. And I look back, it was exciting at that time, writing white papers for big IT companies there on success stories, customer reference stories. That was a good time I had. And then I started with Jungheinrich almost a dozen years ago now, and started off selling warehouse management systems and that was IT systems where the customers really manage all of their warehouse operations electronically. And my role was to gather the requirements, write specifications, talk through with the customers, what functions there are and what their needs are, where it was good learning, really listening to the customer and listening to exactly what the customer needs. That was a good start off there. Then the need emerged from the market,