By Sylvia Jarest, Sr. Director Human Resources
Recently, Matthijs Glastra, CEO spent time with our team in Bedford, Massachusetts, providing an opportunity to highlight the expertise, technologies, and collaborative culture that make this site a key contributor to our company’s success.
Bedford is a unique environment where engineering, manufacturing, customer support, product management, and corporate functions work side by side to solve complex challenges and develop technologies that help customers succeed.
During a fireside chat with Matthijs and Troy McClelland, President of Precision Manufacturing, we discussed our strategic priorities, from serving customers and advancing differentiated technologies to driving operational excellence and long-term growth. Throughout the conversation, one theme remained consistent: Innovation happens when talented people work together with a shared focus on creating value and solving meaningful problems.
That collaborative approach is especially visible in Bedford. Teams from Robotics & Automation, Precision Manufacturing, Precision Medicine, and shared services regularly work across organizational boundaries. Together, they combine expertise to support products and technologies across multiple businesses.
The day also included tours of engineering labs, manufacturing operations, and technology demonstrations that showcased the breadth of capabilities located at the site. Bedford teams contribute to several important technology areas, including beam steering, radio frequency identification (RFID) solutions, optical encoders, and customer application development. These capabilities help address increasingly complex requirements across a wide range of markets and applications.
One of the most memorable moments came during Matthijs’ discussions with engineers and technical teams. As employees shared their work and demonstrated new technologies, he described what he was seeing as innovation in its purest form. His observation reflected something that makes our company distinctive: the ability to combine deep technical expertise with strong manufacturing and commercialization capabilities to bring innovative ideas to market.
That capability is evident in technologies such as Lightning 3, Versia, and emerging RFID and optical encoder solutions. While each serves different applications and markets, they share a common foundation of engineering excellence and cross-functional collaboration built on a commitment to solving real-world challenges.
Just as important as the technologies themselves are the people behind them. We also recognized employees celebrating significant service anniversaries, ranging from five years to 47 years with the company. Their dedication and commitment to continuous improvement have helped establish the foundation that supports innovation today while preparing Bedford for future growth.
When visitors walk through our facility, they see advanced technologies, engineering laboratories, and manufacturing operations. What they may not immediately see is what ties everything together: a culture of collaboration and problem-solving that enables teams to transform ideas into solutions that matter.
The technologies developed and supported in Bedford will continue to evolve, but our approach remains consistent. That spirit of collaboration continues to fuel innovation across Bedford and demonstrates the impact we can achieve when we succeed as One Novanta.