Collaboration at the forefront of development

ProSilva introduced a hybrid harvester at FinnMETKO 2012.

ProSilva Oyj, which operates in Ruovesi in the interior of Finland, is a forest machine manufacturer and long-term partner of Kesla.

“Our cooperation dates back to before ProSilva was founded. My brother and I used to do forest work, originally forest fertilisation. There were no suitable machines in the market, so we started to make them ourselves,” says Lasse Karilainen. Kesla’s founder Antti Kärkkäinen did the same back in the day – he built the machines himself, noting that there was a wider demand in the market for smart technical solutions.

The Karilainen brothers used Kesla harvester heads on their machine when they were building small harvesters that could work with 30 metres between wheel tracks.

“A small company can’t just follow developments, it must lead them.” This is how ProSilva defined its position in the market when the company was founded.

At that stage, Kesla with its cranes and harvesters became more and more involved. There was a lot of cooperation with Kesla’s Kimmo Paakkunainen and Mika Tahvanainen. The cooperation was open. The base machine was ours, and the crane and the harvester head came from Kesla.

Chilean forest companies are among the largest in the world. It was difficult for an SME to break so it was natural for ProSilva and Kesla to join forces.

Towards hybrids

In 2012, ProSilva presented its first hybrid harvester in Finland at the Metko exhibition. The 910 Eh was the occasion of the year at Metko. In addition to final felling, the medium-sized chipper was also reported to be suitable for thinning and harvesting energy wood. The 151 kW diesel engine of the hybrid machine was replaced by a 60 kW diesel and two consecutive 30 kW electric motors. The goal was to save up to 40% on fuel consumption per cubic metre of wood. The development was driven by tighter emission standards. However, the global conquest with the hybrid harvester was sooner said than done; the technical solutions needed further refinement.

In truth, we were about ten years ahead of our time. There were losses because development work and testing is extremely expensive,

- says Karilainen.

ProSilva and Kesla are also on the same track in hybrids; Kesla announced the first ever hybrid chipper in 2014. The starting point of the development of the KESLA C860H hybrid chipper was to improve machine performance and fuel economy. Despite the efforts, Kesla also had to admit having been ahead of its time in the development work, and the chippers could not be produced commercially.

More resources

ProSilva’s Karilainen transferred from CEO duties to the Board of Directors a little before the company announced a significant acquisition in October 2019. Tampereen konepajat Oy bought the majority of ProSilva. “ProSilva had a turnover of approximately €4 million, many times that of Tampereen konepajat. After the acquisition, we are part of a large group, with more resources for future development,” says Lasse Karilainen. “Growth is sought from exports,” said Juhani Lehti, Managing Director of Tampereen konepajat, on the acquisition in Aamulehti newspaper (10 October 2019). Cooperation with Kesla continues and both continue in the same direction: growth is sought from exports. Lasse Karilainen, an influential figure in mechanical timber harvesting, died in Ruovesi on 3 April 2020 after a long illness.

“No tie around that neck”

Lasse Karilainen, CEO of ProSilva Oyj, was thinking trade during his first trip to Chile in 2008. A local contractor and the forest company Arauco had approached ProSilva. In Chile, technology was needed for thinning in demanding conditions.

Lasse Karilainen at FinnMETKO.

Discussions were held in a business-like setting around a conference table, but Karilainen was eager to get to the forest site. The Chilean hosts wondered at the enthusiasm with which the Finnish executive so eagerly wanted to participate in logging. They asked whether such a thing was normal in Finland.

“The advantage of a small company is that you do not have to wear a tie and sit in an office,

- Karilainen recalls, recalling how important for success it is to talk to machine contractors, machine operators and forest owners alike. "Subsequently, discussions with the Chileans covered the required power of the machine, cost-efficiency and other goals. We put the framework together. We promised them we’d build a machine for them to test drive for three months at our own risk. If the machine achieves its targets, we make a deal. If the targets are not achieved, the customer will pay only the return freight of the machine."

The results were achieved and the Chileans paid for the ProSilva 810, which was equipped with a KESLA 25RH harvester head and a KESLA 1395 parallel crane. Since then, Arauco’s top executive has travelled to Ruovesi to see for himself the company that sent the machine to Chile at its own risk.