English - Vahterus Oy

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Vahterus Village
gains International
Recognition
Aili Kontu.
Aili Kontu, now aged 90, still lives on the Kontu estate in her
beloved home village of Vahterus, the very same place where
Vahterus Oy was founded.
“A rural village was a healthy place for our children to grow
up,” she muses.
Her twin boys played sport with their father, Eino Kontu, and were
involved in the farm work from an early age. Aili also believes that her
three children learned a lot from the large elderly population living in
Vahterus at the time.
Aili recalls how her ‘boys’ – who at the time were admittedly grown
men taking their first steps on promising engineering careers – used to
sit at the table across from each other, each holding a pencil, scribbling
calculations and conversing in muted voices. Aappo was the one who
told their mother that Mauri intended to launch a business and even
had a name ready: Vahterus Oy.
Aili liked the name; even if she had her doubts about the enterprise,
at least her beautiful home village would go down in history regardless
of what happened to the business.
The potency of Mauri’s invention only dawned on Aili when the new
heat exchanger won a prize at an exhibition in Holland.
“At that point I started to think that he was onto something!”
Now, in her advanced years, Aili is grateful for and delighted with the
success that her son has achieved over the last 20 years. She has seen
the hard work that both Mauri and Sinikka have put into expanding the
business. One half of the couple travels around the world sealing deals,
while the other keeps the wheels turning back at home.
Aili is also delighted to see how the old dairy that has played an
important role in Kalanti’s history has been restored to its former glory
under the tenancy of Vahterus Oy. What’s more, the name of Vahterus
village is now known in completely new parts of the world.
“The company has sold products all over the globe and the Vahterus
name has spread like wildfire,” Aili muses happily.
Working
Together to
Keep With
the Times
Two Decades of
Partnership With
a Boiler Supplier
Turku-based Noviter Oy has been one
of Vahterus Oy’s oldest customers and
partners.
Vahterus Oy’s Managing Director
Mauri Kontu emphasises that Noviter
played a key role in Vahterus’ early days.
“We received our first product orders
from Noviter, and this is how Vahterus
heat exchangers got on the market.
Noviter had a significant effect on helping
us kick-start our business and begin
production!”
Noviter is now part of MW Power
group.
Subcontract
Projects
Ranging from the
Sawing of Machine
Shells to the
Manufacture of
Billets for Base
Structures
Rautarakenne S. Lipponen Ky, one
of Vahterus Oy’s longest standing
subcontractors and partners, is
located at the Mannersuo industrial
area in Kalanti, only a stone’s throw away from
Vahterus’s Santtio-hall factory. The company,
which specialises in heavy metal structures, was
founded in 1984, just a few years before Vahterus.
In addition to Managing Director Sampo
&
Russia’s military villages taught Turkubased
Noviter Oy an important lesson on
the international market’s ever-growing
quality demands.
“Foreign consultants, primarily German ones,
had different demands from those we were
accustomed to,” recalls Pentti Koivikko, who has
worked in Noviter’s management and sales team
for two decades.
Noviter Oy was one of Vahterus’ first
customers in the beginning of the 1990s, and
cooperation between the two continues to this
day. Vahterus manufactured heat exchangers
for the boiler plants Noviter supplied to Russian
military villages. Nearly 40 new residential areas,
military villages and neighbourhoods were built
for demobbed soldiers returning home from
the German Democratic Republic and from
elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Germans funded
and helped the transfer process.
“For our Russian projects we used welded
plate heat exchangers developed by Vahterus.
We found they were of higher quality than other
models. Almost every boiler plant was equipped
with one or more of these,” Koivikko explains.
Noviter, which was originally a privatelyowned
engineering consulting firm, is now part
of the MW Power Group, an energy technology
subsidiary jointly owned by Metso and Wärtsilä,
which has set its sights on the growing bioenergy
market, among other goals.
Koivikko retired just over a year ago and looks
back on his work-filled days at the company with
obvious pleasure. In Finland, Noviter has supplied
boiler plants to municipally-owned power plants
in particular. The most powerful of these have
been supplied to domestic locations.
At the very beginning of the 21st century
Lipponen, the company employs five in-house
workmen and a large number of subcontractors.
Today, most of the company’s products are sold
to construction firms.
“Our partnership with Vahterus began quite
soon after the company was founded. In 1991
and 1992, we sawed the first shells for Vahterus’
heat exchangers,” Sampo Lipponen recalls.
Today, Vahterus manufactures its own heat
exchanger shells but cooperation between
the companies has continued, for example in
the manufacture of metal base structures and
their billets. Additionally, Vahterus has a need
requirement for different small machine parts,
frequently but at irregular intervals, for which
Rautarakenne S. Lipponen’s machinery is tailormade.
These parts are ordered by e-mail and can
be picked up when they are ready.
Additionally, Rautarakenne S. Lipponen has a
wider range of raw materials always available in
their warehouse.
“As our companies are situated close to one
another, Vahterus staff will occasionally come
to pick up materials they need, and if we are
busy they sometimes even use our machines
themselves and leave a note about it,” Lipponen
says describing the open working relationship
between the companies.
Every day, cooperation between the
neighbouring companies takes place seamlessly
Noviter focused its operations on boilers
powered by biofuel by acquiring a share in one of
the field’s top design companies.
“In hindsight this is one of the wisest decisions
the company has ever made,” Koivikko assesses.
Bioenergy use is experiencing strong growth.
In Finland, the government is working to step
up the use of biofuel with measures such as the
new “twig package”, in which the government
provides subsidies for production of renewable
energy sources. The change in direction meant
that work continued at Noviter, but now as part of
a bigger group.
At Noviter Vahterus heat exchangers are used
for preheating combustion air and fuel in plants
that run on gas and heavy oil. Use of biofuels
poses the additional challenge that, as these fuels
have high moisture content, both the fuel and
the machines treating it must be kept unfrozen in
winter conditions – even when temperatures are
below freezing. Structures and conveyors require
individual heating circuits through which glycol
or some other antifreeze fluid circulates. By this
way even wet wood chips can be moved from the
storage silo to the boiler.
In Koivikko’s experience Vahterus plate heat
exchangers have shown that their structure is
both straightforward and reliable. They endure
high pressures as well as high temperatures and
have no practical usage limitations. The heat
exchangers’ surfaces are made of stainless steel
or acid-resistant materials, allowing the use of
limitless types of heat-transfer fluids without
worrying about corrosion damages to the
machinery.
“The heat exchangers performs just as
promised and no problems have arisen,” Koivikko
specifies.
in both directions. Rautarakenne S. Lipponen
has also occasionally needed a certain size pipe
which they have been able to pick up from their
neighbour’s warehouse.
In times of urgent need a partner close by can
be of great assistance.
”The small size of our workshop enables us to
be flexible and therefore delivery times do not
stretch to a week or two. If our customer is in a
hurry, we can even have the required part ready
on the same day,” Lipponen explains.
Additionally, these good neighbours have
naturally helped one another in expansion
ventures. Rautarakenne S. Lipponen’s field of
expertise is manufacturing steel structures for
buildings, which were recently needed when
Vahterus Oy expanded its facilities to include a
new production hall. Lipponen’s company is also
beginning to expand its own facilities and has
already had “a helping hand” from its neighbour
in the form of HVAC design expertise.
Cooperation between the companies has
continued in a spirit of openness and trust for
some 20 years already, and there has never been
any problems.
Sampo Lipponen is particularly happy that
cooperation between companies within the same
area works so efficiently.
“Vahterus often uses the services of local
subcontractors, as do I. It is important that
Pentti Koivikko
Noviter has become accustomed to always
receiving excellent service from Vahterus.
Koivikko is especially pleased at how quickly
Vahterus has always provided answers when
Noviter has needed information on technical
aspects or prices in sales situations. Although
each solution is custom-made, the design plans
are usually received during the same day or the
next day at the latest. Sizing and pricing is carried
out quickly. “And in joint projects deliveries have
always been prompt,” he adds.
Noviter’s and Vahterus’ common history also
includes a joint project with Eesti Termotehnika
in Tallinn, Estonia. “Vahterus designed the heat
exchanger model that they would be pressing in
Tallinn, and we at Noviter provided the mould,”
Koivikko explains.
Noviter sold its share of the company in 2006,
but production is still going on in Estonia by new
owners.
Sampo Lipponen
companies located in the same area work
together for mutual gain.
It is exceptionally pleasing that Vahterus was
founded here in Kalanti and that it has found an
international market niche!”