The great North drive
29 Mar 2000
Just a few miles below the Arctic Circle, drives manufacturer Vacon - Vaasa Control - is one of the beneficiaries of ABB's transformation. But it didn't seem like that when the company was formed.
ABB decided to move its Finnish drives manufacturing division from Vaasa, in northern Finland, south to Helsinki in 1993. But the high cost of housing and living in the capital persuaded many of the employees to stay in Vaasa and try their luck on their own. The new company started production in 1995; became profitable a year later; and four years on is the country's second-largest exporter after mobile phone giant Nokia.
The company works through sub-contracting and networking, with Vacon employees only involved with vital operations and final assembly of the drives. Customers include Honeywell, Schindler and Cutler-Hammer. The company's plan is to exploit its 65 per cent growth rate to double its share of the world drives market to 3 per cent within four years.
Vacon keeps its drives simple, reducing the number of options which can confuse drive operators, explains chief executive Veijo Karppinen. Vacon instead focuses on application-specific products with built-in PLCs which are far easier to set up.
