Coherix Promotes Board Veteran Ed Allen to CEO as Installed Base Passes 6,000 Systems

More than 6,000 Coherix 3D inspection systems have shipped since the platform's 2015 introduction, and the company that built them has now changed chief executives for the first time in this era of its growth. Coherix, a supplier of 3D adhesive-dispensing inspection and adaptive process-control technology, has named Ed Allen as chief executive officer, effective with the announcement. He succeeds Dwight Carlson, who continues as chairman of the board.

Allen is not an outsider. He joined the Coherix board of directors in 2023 and became the board's executive director in 2025, giving him two years of direct governance exposure to the company's technology and customer base before taking the top job. He brings more than 25 years of experience in manufacturing technology and enterprise software, including senior manufacturing-business leadership roles at Oracle, IBM and Infor. At Infor he served as executive vice president of Manufacturing Industries, leading a cross-functional team of 2,000 people.

What did the outgoing chairman say?

Carlson framed the appointment as a scaling decision rather than a technical one. "Ed knows our industry, our customers, our people, our technology and our board's ambitions from the inside out," Carlson said. "He has led large global teams that sell to the world's leading manufacturers and is the right leader to scale Coherix from a technology pioneer into a global growth company."

That sentence carries the strategy. Coherix positions itself past the pioneer stage. The company says its technology rests on an investment of more than $100 million and over 1 million engineering hours, with its systems having inspected millions of customer parts worldwide.

How does the closed-loop approach work?

The technical distinction Coherix draws matters for any manufacturer evaluating dispensing quality. Conventional inspection systems identify defects only after dispensing, when the adhesive bead is already wrong and the part is already suspect. Coherix instead combines high-speed 3D inspection with adaptive process control: the system measures adhesive bead volume and location, then automatically adjusts the dispensing equipment when deviations occur. This closed-loop architecture (inspection output feeding back into dispenser actuation in real time) aims to prevent defects rather than flag them, reducing scrap, rework and inconsistent dispensing quality.

The company's systems also record and verify the dispensing process for every part produced, creating a permanent digital record. That record supports traceability obligations, quality audits, warranty investigations and process verification — functions that matter most in regulated and high-liability production environments such as automotive assembly and battery manufacturing.

Where is the growth expected?

Under Allen's leadership, Coherix will focus on three priorities the company laid out explicitly:

• Expanding its global customer base across automotive, battery manufacturing and consumer electronics;
• Advancing its adaptive process-control software and analytics capabilities;
• Scaling global operations to meet customer demand.

Allen's own statement tied the technology to the production floor. "Manufacturers are increasingly relying on advanced adhesive-dispensing processes to meet demanding requirements for product performance, quality and production efficiency," Allen said. "Every bead must be applied in the right volume and at the right location. Coherix combines 3D vision with adaptive process control to help manufacturers not only detect deviations but correct them in real time. I'm excited to lead our team as we bring these capabilities to more customers, production lines and markets around the world."

Allen holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and supply-chain management from Michigan State University and an MBA from Wayne State University in Detroit.

What does the leadership change signal for buyers?

For process engineers already running Coherix equipment, the immediate question is continuity: Carlson remains chairman, and the new CEO arrives from inside the boardroom, suggesting no strategic rupture. For manufacturers weighing closed-loop dispensing control against post-hoc inspection alone, the signal points toward consolidation and scale. The company claims its technology improves first-pass yield, increases production efficiency and reduces manufacturing costs across a wide range of adhesive-dispensing applications — claims buyers will want validated against their own line data, bead geometries and throughput requirements before standardizing on the platform. Whether Allen's enterprise-software background accelerates the analytics side of the product line, rather than the vision hardware, is the open question this appointment raises.