Cogiscan: A New Era of Leadership, Collaboration, and Innovation

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Cogiscan, the leading platform provider for factory data focused on the unique needs of PCBA and complex manufacturing ecosystems, has had a lot of news recently. New CEO Martin Drolet, and Benoît Ouellet, VP of technology and operations, discuss their vision for the company’s future through the transition following the retirement of the company’s founders—André Corriveau, Francois Monette, and Vincent Dubois.

Martin and Benoît emphasize a commitment to customer-centricity, collaboration, and the integration of cutting-edge technology like AI, with an eye toward the unique demands of high reliability manufacturing ecosystems. These new leaders are poised to continue addressing unique challenges and bright future of the PCBA industry.

Marcy LaRont: Martin and Benoît, congratulations on your new roles. I understand, however, that you are not new to Cogiscan. Can you give me a little background?

Martin Drolet: Cogiscan is the leader in getting data from the factory floor and taking meaningful action upon that collected data, such as analytics, traceability, or process control, specifically for the PCB industry. We are helping manufacturers to improve their efficiency, to bring control to their production lines, and to make sure that they can measure their performance.

With that, our leadership team has changed. With myself, Benoît, and Marie-Andrée Courtemanche, VP of products, we have more than 60 years of experience at Cogiscan.

LaRont: Did you make some organizational changes with this new leadership?

Benoît Ouellet: It's a slight change. I'm more in operations now, which is new for me. I used to be solely focused on the technology side, working on software development. I joined the company 23 years ago. I started the software development team. Now, I’m moving into this new world of operations and service. Marie-Andrée is taking over software development, marketing, and product management. She's got a great adventure ahead of her as well.

LaRont: What will the next 18 months look like at Cogiscan? What will be your focus?

Drolet: Our focus remains pretty consistent. We have always been a customer-centric company. We are also creating a lot of supplier partnerships. Our philosophy and values are that factory digitalization cannot be achieved alone. We know we go further together. Factory digitalization will never be done in a vacuum. It will never be done by one player. When we started many years ago, the industry was very closed. The attitude was, “I won’t share.” We came and said, “No, it won’t be done well this way. We have to do better.” That was 20 years ago, and it was very difficult to be vendor agnostic. Now, it's more accepted, and collaboration is the base to centralize data, to make sure that we can collect and centralize everything. We will maintain and grow that.

Another big focus for us is the unique challenges of high reliability manufacturing. The cost of manufacturing and the cost of doing business continues to rise. What are we doing to keep those costs down, to protect our customers’ margins? That is a primary focus.

Ouellet: I really enjoyed Kevin Surace's keynote at IPC APEX EXPO about AI being central to this industry’s future. The adoption of CFX as a standard by equipment vendors, software companies, and factories will be very beneficial for the industry in the future.

LaRont: I completely agree. What are you looking forward to in your new positions?

Ouellet: For me, it's the contact with our partners and customers, being there for them more on the operations side. For so long, I've been working behind the scenes as the brain, the architect. So, the human touch, the ability to be a bit more personal with our customers and partners in our business is something I'm really looking forward to.

Drolet: For me, I am looking forward to building our success as a company. We need to be successful for our employees, our partners, and our customers. We are a very dedicated team. It's easy to make a sale. It's another thing to keep a happy customer. It’s important for our customers to know that they will continue to have that Cogiscan experience. It's not trite. We really do care. We want them to feel that continuity of care.

As far as this show, I'm amazed to see all the people that we have known for so many years coming to our booth to say hello. We have all gotten older together. Our priorities have shifted together. But the point is that we have these long relationships, and it's a great testament to Cogiscan as a company and who we are for our customers and partners.

LaRont: It has been lovely to meet and talk to you both. I wish you both much success as you lead Cogiscan into the future.

Drolet: Thank you, Marcy.

For more information about factory analytics, be sure to download the I-007eBook, The Printed Circuit Assembler's Guide to... ™ Factory Analytics, from Cogiscan.