“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
From static management and web cleaning technologies to energy-efficient compressed air systems, Meech helps manufacturers improve productivity, safety, quality, and profitability. Our Engineered to Perfection series shines a light on the people behind those solutions.
This month, we meet Kevin Lipely, US Sales Manager.
Kevin joined Meech on 5 September 2006 – a date he recalls instantly. In the nearly two decades since, he has built lasting customer relationships, expanded Meech’s reach across the US manufacturing sector, and helped deliver solutions to some of the industry’s toughest production challenges.
His route into static control, however, began in an entirely different world: professional sport.
Before joining Meech, Kevin worked as a Sales Manager for a licensed products company supplying merchandise to the NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, and NHL. The business sold into major retailers and professional sports teams across the US and internationally. When the company was sold, a friend mentioned an opening at Meech for a Territory Manager covering the Southeastern United States.
“I took the call, took the meeting, and the rest is history,” Kevin says.
The move from sports licensing into industrial technology was a dramatic shift.
“When you talk about static control, I thought it was just when you walk across your living room floor, hit a light switch and get zapped,” he laughs. “I had no idea how important static control was across manufacturing industries.”
What accelerated that learning curve was seeing applications first-hand in customer facilities.
“Once you see enough applications, it becomes second nature.”
Today, Kevin leads a national team of seven, supporting customers across industries including bottling, packaging, converting, pharmaceuticals, and food manufacturing. His role combines strategic account development with hands-on technical support and mentoring.
“I act as a sounding board,” he explains. “Whether it’s static control or web cleaning, we focus on finding the right fit for each customer’s manufacturing process.”
That application-led approach is what Kevin believes sets Meech apart.
“We don’t approach manufacturing with a cookie-cutter mentality,” he says. “We’re not a one-size-fits-all company. We develop solutions around the customer’s specific challenge.”
That flexibility can mean tailoring a QAC bar to a unique static issue, specifying hygienic equipment for food production environments, or developing pulse DC technology for digital print applications.
One standout example came from a major manufacturer in the RFID sector. The customer had competitor static control equipment installed across multiple production lines yet continued to experience extremely high scrap rates on valuable RFID material.
Kevin’s team introduced Meech QAC bars, which can be fine-tuned to the precise requirements of the application. The impact was immediate.
“The QAC bars are self-adjusting and worked brilliantly for them,” Kevin says. “They reduced scrap from almost 100% down to around 1%, saving the customer a huge amount of money.”
The customer now operates multiple Meech systems across its facility and recently ordered an additional sixty bars for expanded production.
More recently, Kevin has been heavily involved in supporting customers within the growing Machine Direction Oriented (MDO) film market.
Manufacturers using the MDO process often face serious contamination challenges, with powder dust, flakes, and debris building up across banks of rollers. In some cases, production lines must shut down for days at a time for manual cleaning.
“The scrap rates and downtime can be enormous,” Kevin explains. “The more rollers you have, the more friction you create, and the more dust and debris accumulates.”
Meech’s web cleaning technology has proven highly effective in addressing the issue, opening opportunities with both existing and new customers across the US packaging market.
During a recent visit to a packaging manufacturer in Texas, discussions initially focused on static control before shifting to MDO contamination challenges.
“As soon as we started talking about MDO, they welcomed us in straight away,” Kevin says. “It’s opened doors into facilities we hadn’t previously been able to access.”
That proactive mindset has become central to the team’s approach. Engineers and sales specialists now actively identify MDO production lines during customer visits, helping manufacturers address contamination before it impacts output and efficiency.
For Kevin, the company’s greatest strength remains the experience behind the technology.
“People like David Rogers and Stewart Gordon-Smith have been here more than twenty years,” he says. “That knowledge and expertise make a huge difference.”
He believes Meech’s combination of long-term engineering expertise and customer-focused problem solving gives the company a genuine competitive advantage.
“Other companies may have larger engineering teams, but ours have decades of real-world experience.”
Nearly twenty years after joining Meech, Kevin remains as enthusiastic as ever about the opportunities ahead – new industries, new applications, and new customers still discovering what Meech technology can achieve.
“It’s fun,” he says simply. “A blast.”