In April 2025, HSG Laser Co. Ltd. appointed Rakesh Kumar its new North American president. With an impressive career spanning more than 30 years in the U.S. fabrication market, Kumar bought a wealth of expertise to HSG. Founded in 2006, the company has become a global provider of metal processing equipment and automation solutions. Kumar’s stewardship will guide HSG as it continues to innovate and provide solutions to the laser cutting industry. Here, Kumar lays out his vision for HSG and his experiences from his first year – offering insight into the business climate, the laser industry and HSG’s place in it.
Shop Floor Lasers: You’ve been with HSG Laser almost a year. What are your impressions of this first year?
Kumar: It’s been interesting to say the least. Since April 2025, the U.S. government’s policies keep changing, which is tough on business. That was the biggest unknown that I faced in the first six to eight months of last year. One way or the other, I just wish there was a decision made and finalized.
HSG has always believed in giving its word. All our quotes to customers are DDP (delivered duty paid), so when the tariffs changed, we made the de+cision as a business to not go back to customers to ask for more money but just to eat the cost. It was tough on the bottom line, but it created a lot of goodwill, and I think, in the long run, we will come out ahead of it.
What’s HSG’s place in the industry today? How are you approaching 2026 and the next few years?
We feel we’re positioned pretty well in terms of import machines. After being in the industry for 30-plus years, I feel the laser machine tool has become a commodity. When I started, a 1,000-W CO2 laser was the norm. I thought, where else can this go, where else can physics take us? Then it became 4-kW fiber, 6-kW fiber and now we’re talking about 60-kW fiber lasers. Everyone is making lasers today. Two years ago at EuroBlech, I think I counted 72 laser manufacturers, reinforcing my belief lasers have become more of a commodity.
Being an import product, we’re competing with other Chinese brands, which has become a price war that isn’t going to stop. So for 2026, our focus is going to be industry-specific. Instead of just selling a flat laser or tube laser, we’ll go to the end users and offer a product that fits their needs. With its R&D and manufacturing, HSG has effectively positioned itself to provide a product for every industry. We have designed products based on the customers’ voice, so anything laser-related from sheets, plates and coils to bending, welding, processing structural steel, 3-D cutting, MES – we have a product, we have a complete solution.
I just hired a business development director for laser and automation. I’m hiring business development directors for press brakes, welding and software. We’re going to provide that ROI to the customer, showing all the benefits of partnering with HSG. And that’s how we’re going to differentiate ourselves from other laser manufacturers.
Unfairly or not, import lasers are subject to questions about safety. Can you talk about HSG’s approach to safety and quality?
Quality and safety are a huge focus for HSG. Every Sunday night, I sit in a two-hour meeting where quality is all that’s discussed. We have an entire department just focused on FDA compliance* and we already have the FDA certification. We won’t bring any product into the United States that isn’t FDA- or CE-certified. We won’t cut corners on safety.
In May 2025, I voluntarily took FDA inspectors to HSG headquarters in China and had them inspect every one of our products. The reason I did this was to help those at HSG headquarters better understand what the FDA is actually trying to achieve. The FDA gave a two-day seminar on what safety is required, so even though we had already been incorporating all of it, I wanted the HSG leaders to see that we can go above and beyond the FDA’s requirements. If the FDA says these are the 10 features needed, let’s incorporate 15. Let’s see what else our customers might need.
We educate our customers, as well, about these safety issues to make sure they know the cost of cutting corners on safety. There are recent cases in the United States where, unfortunately, people have been injured and even died, so it’s imperative to make sure customers are educated and follow safety protocols. For example, if a customer tells us they don’t need the light curtains on the laser, we aren’t going to install the machine without them.
I’m also on the board of FMA, and we’re trying to educate the FDA and customs about opening up more of the machines and flagging the ones that aren’t safe. It doesn’t matter the brand or model.
I think that’s what’s going to consolidate the laser market. If the FDA and customs find incidents and issues, they’ll pay more attention to the specific brands involved. I actually wish they would open up every HSG machine so I could tell customers the machine has been checked and signed off on.
Overall, it’s a big issue with the U.S. consumer on the laser side. Consumers assume that any company selling in the market is meeting all the safety requirements. Problem is, they find out too late. Our job is to educate customers Our job is to educate customers to ask the important questions surrounding machine safety.
What other aspects of the company differentiate HSG from the competition?
Since I started at HSG, I’ve focused on building an after-sales service department focused on providing support to the customers. I believe that’s going to be yet another differentiator that separates HSG from the other Chinese manufacturers. Obviously, we have to balance the price point because we can’t increase the cost of ownership while we provide top-of-line service.
We have our North American headquarters and showroom just outside of Chicago and leased another 75,000-sq.-ft. building about 15 miles away where we’re planning to expand our parts warehouse and training facility.
The original plan was to manufacture machines at this new facility, but with the unknowns regarding tariffs, we decided to put a hold on that project until the policies settle down. When we know more, we can make a sound financial decision. But for now, we’re going to use it to expand our parts, stock machines, and train customers and service people.
While we’re waiting, we’re still making investments. For example, I’m hiring around 18 service techs this year. We already have many service techs that support us from overseas, but localization and hiring more service people here is a big goal of mine. We know we can sell the product because we have a quality product, but we’re interested in repeat customers so quality, service and safety are our biggest focus right now.
Can you talk a bit about laser cutting technology? Where do you see it heading?
I would say that power levels have reached their peak, but every year I’ve been proven wrong. I’m a mechanical engineer so I look at the physics of laser cutting. After a certain point, the beam has so much energy it can cut a hole in the ground. You can create a 100-kW laser beam, but what’s the supporting structure going to look like? You have to have things like ceramic and graphite beds and paints to absorb the heat.
Another issue is the amount of nitrogen assist gas you’re going to need for, say, 30 kW of power. With laser cutting, the beam diameter is so small that the thicker the cut, the more assist gas is needed to push the metal out, so now you need to increase your beam diameter. And that probably means your bulk tank isn’t going to keep up, so you have to have boosters. That all adds to the cost of part.
In 2025, about 65 percent of our machines sold were 12 kW. For HSG, the power levels are stabilizing in the 12-kW to 20-kW range. The stock machines we keep here are 12 kW. We do consider customer needs and the accessories needed to support 20-kW laser cutting.
Getting back to the idea of lasers as a commodity, it’s about what we can package the laser with, such as automation and AI. I see AI playing a big role, especially with the lack of skilled workers – or any workers. The machine tool needs to do more by itself, be more intelligent, learn by itself and keep running by itself.
How’s HSG incorporating automaton and AI into its products?
We’ve already started incorporating some AI into our machines where the machine learns from the parameters for cutting different materials. The next time a material is chosen, the machine will recommend a starting point. We’re just going to build on top of that.
Other features include things like automatic nozzle changing and having cameras inside while cutting to scan for tip-ups so the machine can be stopped. An automatic lens changer is also something we’re working on.
An advantage worth noting is we make our own cutting heads so we control how to modify them. Again, we’re just making life easier for the operator so they don’t have to constantly intervene with the machine – it can instead take care of things by itself.
Other areas would be automatic loading and unloading, which we’ve always sold but keep expanding on. Last year, 20 percent of our lasers were sold with this automation. My goal this year is to increase that number to 40 percent. We’re also trying to add a part separator with a robot, which we plan to release soon.
To wrap things up, with your years in the industry, what advice you can offer to manufacturers?
One thing I always tell customers that are running a business, especially in the laser field, is to not only look at speed. Look at the output of the entire process. As a great example, two months ago, I was talking to a customer who wanted to measure how fast we could cut 18-gauge stainless steel. I asked him what percentage of the parts are going to be bent; he said about 90 percent. I pointed out that while he can produce parts superfast with his high-wattage laser, if his press brake can’t keep up with it, he’s just creating a bottleneck.
My words of wisdom are to always look at your entire process, not just focus on one part of it. Look at the entire flow through the operations.
Secondly, automate your machines as much as possible. Automation has changed. The initial concept was high volume, low mix and customers still have that in their mind. But automation now can do low volume, high mix, as well, so you should use it to your advantage. Also, use your people downstream. Refocus your labor somewhere besides the front end of the process.
And that’s where HSG comes in. It’s our job to make it easier for customers to run our machines. Our products can compete with any others in the market but we need to change U.S. customers’ perception about our Chinese machines. How do we do that? With product reliability, safety, cost of ownership, affordability, and providing service and support.
*The FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) enforces manufacturing standards (21 CFR 1040.10/1040.11).
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