Martin Schougaard

I joined Weighpack in the summer of 2020, as Commercial Manager International. My focus is mostly on North and South America, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and Asia.

Originally I was educated as a machinist and toolmaker, supplemented with specialist training as a testing engineer in offshore oil and gas production. Then, around 18 years ago, I moved into technical management and project-oriented sales. The last couple of years I have been involved in selling hardware packaging solutions. I find it very rewarding to work on complex system solutions, like the ones Weighpack supplies to a wide range of interesting companies all over the world. I am looking forward to help shape the inspection and packaging solutions of the future.

Delivering packing solutions worldwide

I am responsible for project sales to existing customers and development of potential customers, in close cooperation with local agents. That involves developing effective solutions based on customers requirements, calculating the expected product throughout, writing the quotation and presenting it to the customer.

Communications

I work closely together with our Commercial Director Edward van der Ploeg, and with Cinco Industries, our agent in the US, Southwind in Brazil as well as our agents in Eastern Europe and Asia. And, of course, the manufacturing engineers and decision makers at our customers. I think meetings with customers are an essential ingredient to connect and to create relationships that can be built upon. The pandemic has made that more difficult, but I feel we have maintained very good communications with our customers via video conferencing tools, and orders and new project requests are still coming in. But I miss visiting customers and seeing their buildings and manufacturing processes, which are important when developing inspection and packing lines which are often very complex.

Working from home

I work form my home office in Aalborg, Denmark but try to be in The Hague at least once a month for meetings and testing equipment in our workshop. In my spare time I work on automatic transmissions for vintage cars, do a bit of database programming, and enjoy spending time in the garden where I like to barbeque and make pizzas.

Looking to the future

Both North and South America have many manufacturers of hardware components, such as fasteners, construction components, furniture fixings, and automotive and electrical components, in both steel and plastic. All of which require bulk or retail packaging in plastic bags, carton boxes or returnable containers. That provides opportunities for Weighpack as our core business is to develop, design, and build machines for that. We also provide software to track production data and interface with ERP and WLM systems. I am looking forward to developing that market, in close cooperation with you – our customer!