COMPANY FOCUS
The SP 561 LF is the most recent harvester head released by SP Maskiner
It’s a huge advantage to have a team of engineers with 30 years’ experience – you can’t beat that.”
The first heads produced under the SP banner were of course thinning heads that were largely sold into Europe for many years and their modern day successors continue to demand a healthy market share. The SP 561 LF head is the most recent release by the company and is already known for its speed and agility. Trailblazing has many challenges and while designing the single-grip head, SP realised that it would not be able to use such a machine on the current felling carriers and so was forced to adapt forwarders. It wasn’t until the company formed a partnership with Timberjack (now John Deere) in 1985 that a purpose-built carrier, the basis for the modern harvester, was built. For the next six years, Timberjack made harvesters to carry the SP heads but the relationship ended when Timberjack tried unsuccessfully to buy SP. From then on,
In five years, SP Maskiner has tripled its production. This positive development would not have been possible without Weland
Timberjack developed its own heads, as did many others.
Foundations for growth SP remained the dominant supplier of thinning heads in Sweden and Europe and grew its range in the 1990s to include a mid-size head. But it wasn’t until another group, Weland AB, was able to present an offer too good to refuse in 2003 that SP really began to spread its wings and set itself for expansion into the eucalyptus markets, which were really starting to show signs of promise. “When Weland came in, we sat down with them and put together a strategy plan where we identified the potential markets for growth and what we had to do to achieve the growth we were aiming for,” Gannerud said. “In five years, SP Maskiner has tripled its production. This positive development would not have been possible without Weland.” SP said the new ownership had given it the
Anders Gannerud in Expoforest 2011, Brazil
“muscles” to go after new product developments and to break into new markets that it may not have been game to try as a smaller group. The manufacturer used to have an annual output rate of around 70 harvester heads in the middle of the 2000s. At present, the facility in Ljungby manufactures 200 harvester heads/year. New products with great focus on quality and operational reliability have
The SP 561 LF multi tree equipment
been developed since SP became part of the Weland Group’s forestry machine division and more models are on the way following the strategy plan, according to Gannerud. “Weland’s financial strength has enabled us to take advantage of the knowledge and competence we have gathered after leading the technological development in the industry for the last 30 years,” the company recently stated in an internal publication. From relying on Sweden and northern Europe as its staple markets, SP has recently expanded its international sales network. Gannerud: “We are very happy and satisfied with the development on our new markets but we are certainly not going to stop expanding. We are going to continue to work hard with the development of other products and strive to establish SP on more new markets in the near future. We expect to be able to launch some of these new products on various forestry machine exhibitions worldwide during 2012.”
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011 | International Forest Industries 17
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