Italian roulette – Hufvudstadsbladet

Juha Mäkitalo has been CEO of Finn-Power in four years. He has worked 19 years in the company, mainly in product development, and is happy that the company survived the hard times after the financial crisis. Photo: Bo Ingves

As the Italian Prima Industrie Group bought Kauhavaföretaget Finn-Power in February 2008, both companies’ order books are well filled. Six months later swept the financial crisis across the world, the order backlog was erased almost out and fight for survival began.

A few months after the first shock came sales faltering in once again, but at a distinctly lower level: 2009 Finn-Power’s turnover of EUR 72 million, almost half less than the year before and 60 percent less than in 2007.

Facts

Prima Power

• Prima Industrie is with a total turnover of 360 million euros Italy’s largest engineering machinery manufacturers.
• Daughter Group Finn-Power Oy is still the Finnish unit legal name, but the products named Prima Power as well as the company in everyday speech. The company has since 1999 had a factory in Verona, Italy, which makes automatic bending machines.
• The Parent Company has a laser factory in Turin and two plants in the United States that make special laser machines.
• In China, the Group has a factory without its own product. It makes simple standard products.

It was tough even for debt Prima Industrie as with the loan money had bought a turnover larger company by the Swedish private equity company EQT.

– In autumn 2008, remained one-fifth of our backlog when the situation was at its worst. In Italy you learn to have sworn woes and the curse of the purchase, says Finn-Power’s CEO Juha Mäkitalo .

Seven years later, he is an obviously satisfied man who promises new hires this year.

– In the last year our turnover increased to 108 million euros, a gain of nearly four million and the order book does not look like his.

time bank gives suppleness

To return to the growth path took several years of cutbacks and a sharp realignment of the business. Internally, Finn-Power has created a flexible organization that enables staff to flex.

– In early 2008, we had 520 employees, today we are 330. When the outlook was at its worst spring of 2009, a general pay increase of 4.5 percent. It was a direct cause of many layoffs in the country.

After the big bang, it has according Mäkitalo been micro depression each year. Staffing needs vary greatly from month to month, and capacity utilization in the factory shifts by up to 50 per cent in a year.

– One day, we have 60 men in production plus 15 contracted, the next moment we do not have jobs for our own staff. On the contrary, perhaps 20 laid off through our so-called time bank.

Via timbanken, developed together with the staff, the staff work more when the insert is needed while the collected hours taken as time off when production stands.

– It is a condition for us to be profitable and survive. Thanks to this flexibility, the company has not had to cut down the number of employees since in 2010.

– We have increased turnover 72-108 million euros without the fixed costs have risen significantly. Therefore we go again with profit.

Product center

Logistics costs are not an obstacle to competitiveness, although the company is in Kauhava in South Ostrobothnia.

– The cost problem lies elsewhere, for example in the sulfur directive rigorous introduction, the increasingly stringent taxation and heavy bureaucracy surrounding everything related business.

Mäkitalo do not understand why people in Finland down stricter requirements businesses than they do in the EU average.

– officially claimed that the new regulations do not significantly affect the cost of business, but we see them enough in all the bills we pay. No one has figured out what provisions a total cost businesses and hence the country.

Mäkitalo makes no secret of the owner of Italy has been something of a guardian angel. The actual acquisition was a logical aggregation because the companies had very little overlap.

– We have continuously gained more jobs from Italy when the Italians specialize in laser cutting, and we are bending, drilling, combination machines and software.

All the factories in today’s corporate structure operates independently and has its own production and product development and sales.

– In Kauhava we are investing nearly six percent of sales on research and development last year over six million. During the worst years we intensified product development.

Exports determines

Over 90 percent of production in Kauhava is exported. A quarter goes to the United States and sales to China are growing every year. However, exports to Europe dropped to below 50 percent.

– We specialize in large production lines goats, seals and cuts the metal of different thickness and type. An important part of all deliveries is the software that controls the machines, says sales director Jan Tapanainen.

He takes me to the clean and quiet factory where all the tools and components are on their given places.

– Our manufacturing is resource efficient, and our fitters know exactly what to do. Earlier we made most parts ourselves, but now, most from suppliers, which have clearly reduced our fixed costs, says Tapanainen.

System deliveries are the fastest growing part of the business, accounting for over half of sales.

– A mantra in today’s industrial world is industrially internet, which our machines have been ready for a long time. We can also provide service and maintenance remotely, to a certain extent.

Tapanainen showcases Finn-Power’s patentrum with diploma along the walls.

– We have few hundred patents. For example, Multi Tool is a perforating gun which can be loaded with 24 different tools. Previously, each tool a custom machine, so the invention was revolutionary.