3 minute read
What goes around comes around
Markku Laaksonen (left) has worked closely with KESLA customers.
Cooperation between Markku Laaksonen and Kesla dates back to the mid-1990s, when TechnionOy was still called Leomatik and Laaksonen worked for Mitron Oy, a manufacturer of the Motomit control system.
“In 1993, at the end of my studies, I took a summer job at Mitron and stayed there. A colleague once said that the forest business is like a big sandbox – you can try to climb out of it, but eventually you always fall back,” says Markku Laaksonen, Managing Director of Technion Oy. Let us go back to 1979, when Leo Fredman from Raisio founded Leomatik, a small electrification company. The company received a significant boost in 1994 when Leomatik started to manufacture wiring harnesses for Multilift. As a contract manufacturer of harnesses, the company’s turnover rose to around €3 million in ten years. In 2005, Fredman sold Leomatik to Jaakko Asanti. Asanti, who had a career in Nokia’s cable business, had decided to look for a suitable company in his former home region of Turku that could benefit from his industrial knowhow and that he could help develop. Growth-oriented Leomatik was looking for a CEO, and a head-hunter contacted Laakso, who worked for Mitron. He accepted the offer and took the lead at Leomatik in September 2006. At Mitron Laaksonen was responsible for the forest machine systems business. One of his clients was Kesla:
New name, bigger pool of experts
The name of Leomatik, owned by Asanti, had been abandoned in 2007, and Technion was chosen as the company’s new name. The new name was more modern, also describing the change and development that Markku Laaksonen had started. Technion had soon grown into a company that employed 45 people and generated a turnover of around €5 million. In October 2008, the company had started co-determination negotiations after Multilift and Sandvik, the company’s largest customers, had communicated rapidly deteriorating order books. The company was not paralysed under the pressure of the recession, but instead started to invest in developing its own products.
“In 2009, I started contacting old Mitron colleagues. Shortly before I left, Mitron had been sold to Canadian electronics manufacturer Vansco Electronics LP, which had since been acquired by Parker in April 2008. The contacting paid off, as several former colleagues joined Technion.”
Cooperation in new gear
In 2009, Markku Laaksonen contacted Kesla. “I went to Joensuu to listen to their needs – support and development work with their supplier at the time had deteriorated, and it was a good time to start working with a new company, but with familiar people. In 2010, the project was kicked off, and Technion started to develop a new harvester head control system.” The cooperation has been fruitful. The electronic control system for Kesla’s harvester heads is praised for its precision, speed, ease of use and smooth movement that makes the work of machine drivers easier. “Work on the development of control systems is progressing rapidly. The intelligent control system aims to assist the driver to make work easier and produce results.”
When talking about the intelligence of the control system Laaksonen emphasises the expediency of the features. The development work is guided by messages from the field. “We are developing features for the control system that make the driver’s work easier and more productive.”
Kesla ranks first in forest systems
By 2018, Technion had grown into a company with a turnover of around €9 million, employing around 70 people. In August 2019, the company had big news when Hydac Oy, a Finnish subsidiary of the German HYDAC Group, announced that it had acquired a majority stake in Technion. Managing Director Markku Laaksonen was travelling constantly to tour HYDAC Group’s country offices, trade fairs and customer meetings.
“Previously, I had two salespeople in an organisation of 70 people. Now there are 3,000 salespeople in an organisation of about 10,000 people.”
As a result of the acquisition, Technion received support from the HYDAC Group’s global sales network and a significant increase in the product offering of control system solutions. “Having a large international family-owned industrial company as our principal owner gives us credibility and additional resources, enabling long-term business development for the benefit of our customers. Together with HYDAC, we are able to offer our customers larger and more competitive entities.”
Technion’s vision is to be one of the leading suppliers of electronic control systems to the industry manufacturing vehicle equipment, commercial vehicles and work machines, close to the customer. Kesla is Technion’s largest customer in the forest systems business area.
