Business View Magazine | October 2019

91 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2019 DYNAMI C INTERNAT IONAL INC . maybe six that are similar in size by sales figures, some with 150 employees or more, but no one has their own factory producing machines. Layo warns, “They’re all buying from existing factories in Taiwan or Asia, and the risk is if that company gets bought, you can lose your importing rights because the new company might want to change. That’s why I decided to start my own company. The Smart Machine Tool difference is the team’s knowledge of product design, engineering, and understanding what the market needs. We have developed CNC lathes ranging from 10-inch to 30-inch chucks with the end-users’ needs in mind, and we will be offering these machines through exclusive distributors to the North American market.” For the future, Layo acknowledges, “My long-term plans put a big focus on my factory because I have complete control over it. I’d like to grow to about 100 units per month; today it’s 20. We deal with the bigger manufacturers because of the volume of business we do, and their main suppliers have relationship with Samsung Machine Tools, offering horizontal turning lathes and vertical machining centers. In 2018, after seven years, and selling 2,700 machines, Dynamic International pursued the branding of its own machine tools under the Smart Machine Tool name. Layo predicts that Smart Machine Tool Korea (the U.S.-owned Dynamic International subsidiary) is perfectly poised for growth. He explains, “One of the biggest products we sell are CNC lathes for turning. And a year ago, I opened a factory in South Korea that I own 51 percent of, for manufacturing CNC lathes. That is a big advantage because rather than buying my lathes from a manufacturer and them exporting to me, I’m building it and importing it, myself, directly to North America. Since opening in April, we’re up to about 20 units per month in that factory, so it gives us over 200 machines at the end of our first year.” Dynamic International records annual sales of between $80-$100 million. Of all the other major importers in the sector in North America, there are