
January 13, 2025
OCONTO FALLS – Since Jeff Berken started his conveyor solution business in his garage in 2017, he said it’s grown dramatically.
Specializing in motor-driven rollers (MDR), with a focus on customization, Jeff said, has set the business apart from others in the conveyor space.
Today, Berken Solutions calls 109 E. Highland Drive in Oconto Falls, home – a 160,000-square-foot building formerly owned by S&M Machine.
Jeff said Berken Solutions moved into the space in December 2022, taking things a step further by officially purchasing the building and the former owner’s business, S&M Machine, in 2023.
Doing so, he said, added on-site fabrication services to Berken Solutions’ business, both for its own purposes, as well as for Oconto County businesses with those needs.
And as Berken Solutions has expanded its operations into the space in the past two years, Jeff said it has added about 20 employees (including the five former machine shop employees, two of whom have since retired) and plans to bring on another 10 employees in 2025, bringing the team to 40-45 employees.
Collectively, Jeff said they deliver on the custom conveyor solutions, including MDR, that OEMs and integrators across the United States seek.
In doing so, Jeff said Berken Solutions has differentiated itself in the conveyor solution industry.
Differentiating itself
MDR is a conveyor system in which each roller has its own small motor embedded inside that allows for precise control over zones of a conveyor system.
Because each roller can move independently, Jeff said it can drive a product along the conveyor only as needed.
“In Northeast Wisconsin, focusing on MDR differentiates us right off the bat,” the CEO said. “Berken also wants to be involved from the start to the finish of a project, helping to design the conveyor system the customer wants, installing and programming to ensure the customer is happy and it’s a successful project at the end of the day.”

Jeff said that is done with a very customized approach – as unlike some businesses in the conveyor solutions space, Berken Solutions doesn’t show up with a catalog of conveyor products or parts.
“Instead, our engineers and others work with the customer to figure out the conveyor solution that’s right for their needs and work with them through the entire process,” he said. “Part of our value-add as a company is to ensure the conveyor system works as advertised. With large conveyor manufacturers, there’s variation in how much ownership and involvement they want in the design, engineering, form, fit and function of a conveyor system. We like to be involved in every point of the system.”
Jeff said there are fewer conveyor solution companies doing that as the industry has endured several mergers and acquisitions, leaving fewer companies in the small- to medium-size category to supply conveyor solutions – something he said Berken Solutions prides itself on being.
“When you’re a small- to medium-(sized) company, you can be focused on customers and providing the solutions that fit customers’ needs,” he said.
Being involved from the concept to the installation and programming of a conveyor solution, Jeff said, ensures the solution functions as it should.
Customization is the name of the game for the end user throughout the journey, he said, from the conception on the front end to the custom paint color applied.
When working with OEMs, Jeff said Berken’s conveyor solution is integrated into the other products it’s selling.
When working with integrators, he said Berken Solutions’ conveyor solutions are often being installed for a customer alongside a warehouse build or renovation including securing warehouse racking, forklifts, etc.
“I liken the integrator to a general contractor when building a house,” he said. “They don’t manufacture anything, just as a general contractor wouldn’t build the roof himself. Instead, they’re contracting with a bunch of businesses to create the development.”
Jeff said that development is most often the establishment, updating or expansion of a warehouse and distribution environment.
Broad customer base
For Berken Solutions, he said that includes several companies in the paper tissue industry but extends throughout the manufacturing and warehousing industry and into the food and beverage space.
Serving this breadth of end customers, Jeff said, means diverse needs and a call for diverse solutions.
“The industries can be completely different,” he said.
A production facility making cookies, Jeff said, may need automation to accommodate a volume of cookies coming out of an oven and moving along the conveyor with sufficient time to cool before packaging.
That said, the volume of cookies, he said, may warrant movement from the oven to the conveyor every few seconds.
In contrast, Jeff said if a conveyor solution is part of assembling an oven, a finished product may only come off the conveyor every 10 minutes because of the complexity of assembly on it.
The level of sophistication and technology adoption, he said, varies across industries – whereas MDR is a standard in many industries.
Jeff said he has witnessed some adoption of MDR in airports, such as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, at which the conveyors are used to move through TSA incorporate transfers and even miniature elevators into them.
MDR is modular, by nature, which he said means it can be applied in different environments with Lego-like simplicity.
“Because it’s modular, it’s easy to use a little here and a little there, and if someone wants to reconfigure the conveyor system in the future, it’s easy to do so,” he said. “Traditional conveyors, in contrast, may be 100-inches to 200-inches long, and if you want to repurpose it, it’s difficult because one drive runs the whole thing.”
Technological advances
Not surprisingly, living in a world of increased automation, robotics, artificial intelligence and automated guided vehicles (AGVs), Jeff said the conveyor system industry is facing significant changes.
Whereas, he said, the historic trend was to install miles of conveyor in a warehouse to convey products all over the warehouse.
The new trend, Jeff said, is to embrace automation, robotics and AGVs and to incorporate the conveyor system only when needed – typically at the beginning and end of the process.
“That is shrinking the market a bit, but there is absolutely a need today and in the future for conveyor products,” he said. “It’s more a matter of how they’re applied that is shifting.”
Jeff said that’s aided by an increased volume of data available within conveyor systems. Because MDR breaks down the conveyor line into shorter, independently controlled sections, he said it poses the opportunity to collect data associated with each section, whether to study it to create more efficiencies or even to anticipate forthcoming maintenance required.

“The amount of data available is insurmountable, but it’s the ability to harness that data that presents the opportunity,” he said. “Every minute of every workday, time equals money. Customers want to minimize downtime.”
If the customer has access to the proper data, Jeff said they could anticipate equipment failures or a need for maintenance that can be done off hours.
In many scenarios, Jeff said he works with SVT Robotics to that end – with a third-party software company providing standard software that allows one piece of automation to connect to another piece of automation.
Put simply, he said it connects multiple technologies without custom coding.
“Their vision is to connect everything to everything because there is a shortage of controls engineers, and if you can connect through prewritten code, it significantly reduces the project cycle time and connects to other technology,” Berken said. “Typically, it’s a warehouse management system (WMS).”
Jeff said that data needs to be able to transfer between a WMS and the conveyor system, and that’s where SVT’s robotics come in for some projects.
In doing so, he said it allows for aggregated and standardized data that businesses can use to make informed business decisions.
Jeff said SVT’s offering is unique for many reasons, including that it is a subscription-based offering – with it generally appealing to smaller clientele who can’t or prefer not to pay the software development cost up front.
“SVT is a trendsetter and a fairly new way to look at (software integration),” he said. “With their SOFTBOT® technology, they create a platform for every program and as we build additional modules and pieces, we can re-use those for future systems and make them faster and easier to deploy.”
And yet, while Berken Solutions is very advanced in terms of its receptivity and adoption of technology, Jeff said the company equally emphasizes customer service.
“Do good things and be good to people, and you make lifelong relationships,” he said of Berken Solutions’ approach. “Our goal is to find lifelong customers to build relationships with. That means having a bunch of people (on the team) who care about what we’re doing and the relationships we have.”
Jeff said those relationships extend to customers across the United States, as well as some international business driven by those relationships, with Berken Solutions delivering conveyor solutions to Canada, Australia and Mexico.
“But 90% of what we manufacture stays in the United States,” he said.
Adding the fabrication business to Berken Solutions’ offerings, Jeff said, is part of the business’ strategy to equally support businesses closer to home and their fabrication needs.
“We’re working on developing methods for local communities to use us as a fabrication company – anything with sheet metal or assembly,” he said. “We can do contract manufacturing as well as ‘onesie/twosie’ fabrication needs for the community.”