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Beckhoff USA has selected Brandon Snell, P.E., for a new role as MX-System Product Manager. With this promotion, Snell will oversee the technical marketing, adoption and sales strategy of the breakthrough MX-System technology – a modular, cabinet-free automation hardware platform that eliminates enclosures, minimizes wiring and assembly, and shrinks machine footprints. Snell reports to Daymon Thompson, Director of Product Management (USA)
“Brandon’s extensive sales and application engineering experience along with a deep understanding of our products and customer needs make him a perfect fit for this role,” Thompson said. “He has a wealth of automation knowledge as a licensed Professional Engineer with almost two decades of experience and the business skills needed to chart the success of the MX-System in the U.S.”
Based near Kansas City, Missouri, Snell began his career as a controls engineer at a machine tool OEM, Kays Engineering, in 2006. There, he focused on both programming and the design of control cabinets and panels. He joined Beckhoff in 2011 as an application engineer covering a broad swath of the Midwest, then transitioned to a sales engineer role in 2022. This diverse range of experience provided the ideal background for his new role in launching and promoting new MX-System technologies.
“MX-System incorporates technologies from almost every other Beckhoff product line. As we continue to release new, innovative products, the inevitable question will be, ‘When will this be available on the MX-System?’” Snell says. “This cabinet-free technology adds a new level of engineering capabilities to the Beckhoff portfolio. Much of what is known about panel and enclosure design has not changed in decades. It will be fun to challenge my fellow engineers to think outside the box – literally.”
Launching a revolutionary product is not without its challenges, Snell acknowledges. Implementing the MX-System involves completely rethinking machine controls, requiring greater collaboration between the electrical and mechanical engineering teams as well as machine assembly departments.
“We have seen a trend for many years with software becoming more modular. The introduction of object-oriented programming (OOP) in the industrial world has led to machines that can be commissioned in smaller, more manageable pieces,” Snell says. “On the hardware front, MX-System will be the logical next step for these modular designs. By no longer requiring the hardware to be installed mostly in a centralized control cabinet, truly modular, cabinet-free machines are fast becoming a reality.”
Snell earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Clemson University and an MBA from the University of Central Missouri.
