CEO DIARIES
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role as an industry leader? My name is Steve Ekström, and I have been CEO of Noswing Ab Oy since the company officially launched in 2014. My role is to guide the development of practical automation solutions for heavy material handling and to ensure that the technology continues to meet the realities of industrial work. Crane automation draws on several kinds of
expertise. Over the years, we have worked with specialists from a wide range of disciplines, from algorithm development and industrial safety to heavy mechanical engineering. That breadth matters because a control algorithm that performs well in simulation still has to work on a real crane. Once it reaches the factory floor, the machinery and the changing load rarely behave as neatly as the model suggests. I do not see leadership as simply managing a company. My responsibility is to connect technical knowledge with actual customer problems and keep development moving in a useful direction. Much of that comes from listening to the people who operate and maintain the crane, then working with builders and integrators to improve the existing system instead of forcing the customer to rebuild it. Today, much of my attention is on making advanced crane control easier to adopt. A solution should improve the way the crane works without becoming a burden for the people who install and use it.
Can you tell us how you got into this industry and why? The idea behind Noswing dates back to 2005. At the time, I was working for an electrical services and automation company. Cranes were not our original focus, but the company was suddenly asked to work on them. That was why I began speaking with plant managers and crane operators, and load sway kept coming up. Operators described how it demanded constant
correction and could create hazardous situations. Maintenance teams saw the same behaviour as added stress on the crane. It soon became clear that sway affected more than the final few seconds of a lift. The operator had to manage it throughout the movement and then wait for the load to settle before placing it. Every correction also produced another shock for the crane to absorb. That led us to investigate whether intelligent control algorithms could anticipate and reduce sway. We began with software simulations and then moved to a physical proof of concept on an industrial crane. Seeing the system control the movement on a
real crane was the decisive moment. It showed that software could make heavy lifting smoother and more predictable while reducing the amount of corrective work required from the operator. What began as a problem within the services and automation company gradually became a development area in its own right. In 2014, that work became Noswing, a separate company with a specific focus on an anti-sway solution. Early development also taught us that even
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the best anti-sway algorithm must fit the crane it controls. The drive and mechanics determine how the crane responds, and the controls must remain clear and safe for the operator. That whole-system perspective remains central to our work today.
What makes your company stand out? Noswing combines software development with practical crane experience. Our technology is designed for demanding industrial environments rather than isolated laboratory setups. We treat the crane and its suspended load as a single moving system, with the control responding to both the operator and the machinery. Measured feedback is a major part of our approach. A mathematical model can estimate how a suspended load should behave, but a real crane will never
Noswing developers Joel Bjons and Ngoc Do during development and testing of the NS100E at the company’s test facility in Vaasa.
One of Noswing’s test cranes with the anti- sway sensor attached.
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