Finbow: A forerunner in Finnish roll manufacturing and maintenance

Finbow Managing Director Urpo Versta:

In 1985, there were no companies concentrating on spreader roll manufacturing or maintenance in Finland. Tuure Uusitalo received a suggestion from persons in charge of maintenance at paper mills to start a company that would service and manufacture spreader rolls. Uusitalo was known as a reliable expert. He was familiar with all of the paper machines in Finland, and did not need much instruction. Therefore, the company immediately began to grow and develop entirely new kinds of solutions.

The boys need mobile phones!

Tuure Uusitalo was a colorful personality: he was a remarkable businessman with a strong personality, loved by his customers. Matters were often agreed upon in the first negotiations, and promises were always kept. A good example of the kind of man he was is that in the 1990s, when GSM phones were still quite expensive, he bought them for all employees. At the time, such luxury was worth several months' salary, and few could afford it. "Let's buy phones for the boys! The boys need mobile phones!" The employees could then pay it back at their own pace by putting in some overtime hours.

Finbow as a part of Metso

In 1991, the depression was at its strongest, but Finbow was a growing company with good prospects. The company moved to new facilities, which were further expanded in the mid-90s. At the time, Valmet became interested in the company.

In 1995, I joined the company under Uusitalo and started working as a consultant. One night he called me around ten. "Will you start as my Production Manager?" He wanted an answer right away, but at last I managed to get time to think about the issue until the following morning. That was quite typical of Tuure.

Valmet wanted to secure deliveries from their subcontractor and bought a share of Finbow. Sometime after that, Valmet and Rauma-Repola were fused as Metso. No major changes took place in the beginning, and Uusitalo continued to run the company as before. At the end of the 1990s, Metso bought the rest of the Finbow shares, and Juhani Eskelinen was appointed as managing director.

Eskelinen is an engineer with an extremely technical orientation, and the following years were an important time for Finbow. Intense product development followed, based on the will and need of the machine manufacturers to lead the field in a certain direction. Many good solutions were made that have carried on until today.

An important milestone was reached in the beginning of the 2000s, as Finbow found new bearing solutions and introduced ceramic bearings.

Jukka Salo was the managing director of Finbow at the time. The possibility of selling Finbow was also discussed, but the final decision was to maintain ownership at Metso, as spreader rolls are important components that Metso wanted to be able to manufacture internally.

The strengths of the big and small

The following step was to appoint Jorma Majava as managing director. He was also the managing director of the Metso Oulu unit in 2005-2006. Finbow was fused to the coater business line of the Metso Järvenpää unit, where our operations were led by Jukka Koskinen. Until this point, Finbow Oy had been a separate company within Metso, but it was now dissolved. In June 2007, Metso opened negotiations on outsourcing the manufacture of spreader rolls.

The negotiations were concluded in May 2008, and I was appointed Managing Director. The company immediately began to grow, and I was flying around the world all the time. Finbow could serve its customers with the flexibility of a small company, along with years of product development in a big organization to support it.

Finbow was previously known as a Metso trademark but is now operating around the world as an individual company.

The way I see it, the next step will be to give the company's image a facelift and to strengthen the brand. We are headed to the international market, and our brand must reflect this fact.