Kongsberg PCS celebrates 60 years of innovation
July 23, 2025
To mark its 60th anniversary, Kongsberg Precision Cutting Systems (PCS) reflects on its proud heritage in digital cutting innovation, from its roots in Kongsberg, Norway, to its global reach today.
The video marks a significant milestone: 60 years of innovation, craftsmanship, and commitment to customers. Highlighting long-lasting customer relationships, award-winning innovations, and a global team dedicated to uptime and service, Kongsberg PCS showcases how it’s not just building machines, it's shaping the future. With sustainability integrated into design and manufacturing, the company looks ahead with purpose: continuing to deliver 60 years of precision and performance.
More than a milestone: How Kongsberg’s 60-Year journey is Shaping the Future
To celebrate its 60th anniversary, we sit down with Stuart Fox, President & CEO, Kongsberg Precision Cutting Systems (PCS), to explore the lessons and steps taken to ensure that our mindset of staying curious, understanding our customers, and refusing to cut corners, stays implemented and front of mind, now and in the future.
- What would you say are the most significant lessons the company has learned over the last six decades?
When I look back over the past 60 years, what truly stands out and sets us apart in our approach to market is our unwavering focus on solving real challenges for our customers. While technology has changed significantly, our approach has remained consistently attuned to tailoring our technologies and solutions to match our customers’ evolving needs. Over six decades, we’ve learned that true innovation isn’t just about technology; it’s also about trust, resilience, and relevance.
The most significant lesson has been that lasting impact comes from listening to and understanding our customers and evolving with them. We’ve also learnt that, while it is important to deliver quality in product performance, it’s just as important to build good, long-term relationships with our customers and partners. Finally, as part of our product roadmap, we have made the commitment to ensuring that sustainability and innovation go hand in hand.
These lessons may have been learnt over the course of six decades, but they form the foundation of how we’ll continue to shape the future. - In an industry evolving rapidly with automation and smart technologies, how does Kongsberg continue to innovate without compromising the reliability it’s known for?
At Kongsberg, innovation isn’t just about introducing something new; it’s about adding real value. We focus on purposeful progress, where every advancement must enhance reliability, productivity, or sustainability. Whether it's our Robotic Material Handler, feeder and stacker systems, or AI-assisted smart tooling databases, every innovation is designed to solve a real-world problem our customers face. Our customers expect machines that perform consistently, and many are still running Kongsberg tables that were installed over a decade ago. That kind of longevity is built into everything we do.
From small to wide format jobs, Kongsberg Precision Cutting Systems is designed to handle everything with precision and speed, helping our customers to achieve high-quality results.
At Kongsberg Precision Cutting Systems, we work in partnership with businesses to imagine and unlock their full creative and commercial potential. As we push the boundaries of digital cutting with smarter workflows, remote monitoring, and high-level automation, we remain firmly committed to providing quality and uptime. - Sustainability is described as being “at the core” of new product design. How has that evolved from previous decades, and what’s next?
We have a robust Environmental, Social, and Governance ESG framework that is embedded across all areas of our operations – be it at the design and materials selection, production, distribution, or use of our cutting machines. We build from the ground up, improving energy efficiency and workflow with sustainability in mind.
In recent years, sustainability has become much more intentional across the print, signage, and packaging industries, and that’s a good thing. Wherever our customers are with their sustainability efforts, we’re able to help them look ahead and feel confident in the long-term investment that they’re making for their business. For our own operations and new products, we’re exploring circular design, smarter materials, and innovations that help our customers meet their own environmental goals without compromising performance. It’s not just about being responsible, it’s about understanding the benefits it can bring and ultimately shaping your (our customers’) future together, to imagine and unlock further commercial potential. - Collaboration is a core value for Kongsberg PCS. How does Kongsberg engage with customers to co-create future-ready solutions?
Collaboration is at the heart of how we innovate. We’re dedicated to working in partnership with all our stakeholders – not just our customers but also suppliers, channel partners and resellers. This approach ensures our customers are in the best position to accelerate their own growth & capabilities.
Our teams work closely with customers on-site and offer ongoing support, listening to their evolving needs and challenges. That direct feedback shapes our product roadmap. By working closely with our customers and partners, we ensure our innovations solve real-world challenges, not just technical ones.
We don’t just say we do this, we have a robust programme ‘’voice of the customer’’ which includes well-proven methodologies such as ‘’Value stream mapping’’ to give in-depth insight to both our customers and us about their challenges and how our future developments could help. The recent Ultimate development was underpinned by these approaches. - With so many changes in automation, AI, and digital workflows, what’s your message to customers trying to future-proof their businesses?
While one can never truly predict the future, investing in solutions that are scalable, intuitive, and backed by a partner that’s able to support your aspirations as they evolve will leave you better placed for whatever the future brings. At Kongsberg, we’re not just providing cutting tables, we’re helping customers bring all their tools and processes into one smooth, future-ready workflow, to ultimately grow with your business. Whether it’s automation, remote monitoring, or AI, we focus on giving customers control, flexibility, and confidence as they shape the future.
Technology is evolving fast. According to the latest FESPA Print Census 2025, 70% of print service providers say they’re meeting sustainability demands without increasing prices, while a further 22% have raised prices without negatively impacting sales. That tells us the industry is not just adapting, it’s finding smart, future-proof ways to grow and technology is an enabler. - What do you want people to remember about Kongsberg’s 60th anniversary, not just the milestone, but the meaning behind it?
Sixty years isn’t just a number; it’s a testament to consistency, integrity, and significant progress. We want people to remember that Kongsberg remains their reliable partner, as well as a driver of innovation – a company that builds for the long term.
Throughout our journey, we’ve proven our ability to adapt and evolve, whether that’s entering new industries, integrating breakthrough technologies, or responding to shifting customer demands and market pressures. We’ve faced new competitors and changing landscapes, but what’s kept us strong is our agility and willingness to advance while staying true to our core values. That balance between evolution and consistency is what allows us to keep moving forward, delivering cutting-edge solutions for our customers.
This anniversary is about honouring the trust our customers have placed in us, and about looking forward, together, toward shaping the future together with high-performance technology, sustainable thinking, and strong relationships. - The company has evolved significantly since its origins, serving a much broader customer base across multiple verticals with its current offering. What can customers expect over the next 10 years?
As a company, we anticipate a continued shift toward digitisation, personalisation, and automation. And we believe these trends, coupled with shorter print runs, faster job changes, and the need for sustainable production, will lead to further demand and investment in advanced finishing systems.
We also anticipate automation continuing to advance with enhanced pallet-to-pallet operations, contributing to higher throughput and lower waste.
As I mentioned earlier, the integration of AI-powered vision and monitoring systems holds enormous potential. The integration will enable technology to go beyond defect detection and be able to dynamically adjust for warp and flute variations and job-specific requirements. This will ensure precise cutting, creasing and material handling for even the most challenging substrates.
We’re also seeing exciting developments in digital printing technologies that are accelerating this shift, enabling faster, more versatile production across a broader range of materials. This evolution in print is pushing finishing systems to become even more flexible, automated and intelligent. At the same time, the global drive toward more sustainable materials, alongside tightening legislation in packaging and signage, is influencing the way our customers work. Our solutions are being designed to meet these challenges head-on, offering the versatility and adaptability needed to handle new, eco-friendly materials without compromising quality or efficiency.
To remain competitive, businesses must stay aligned with emerging innovations and maintain a proactive, adaptable approach to these advancements, as well as changing customer demands, to future-proof their business. Over the next 10 years, we will be helping customers shape their future - together.