Vaski – creating efficiency in industrial manufacturing

Vaski Oy manufactures and designs machinery and automation solution for the manufacturing industry. The company’s key products include machinery for flat bar and coiled sheet metal processing. Vaski is based in Seinäjoki, South Ostrobothnia, with a recent acquisition of Pivatic Oy in Hyvinkää.

Vaski Oy is currently one of the fastest growing industrial companies in Finland. We were curious to learn what has driven this growth and how the company’s Managing Director Michael Mansour views the future for the industry and Vaski in particular.

Shut It or Grow It

Vaski was founded in 2015 in Finland to improve efficiency in manufacturing, initially focusing on busbar machines. The company’s early years were challenging, and by 2019, when Mansour relocated to Finland, Vaski faced with some tough decisions.

– While we had some interesting ideas, we weren’t really selling them. It was a “shut it or grow it” moment. We put real drive into industrializing our ideas and brought some local talent into the development, recalls Mansour. This marked a turning point in Vaski’s growth and now the company is number two in the world in the flat bar business.

Picture 1: Vaski’s MD Michael Mansour feels optimistic about the company’s future (picture: Tiina Nieminen, 2024).

Growth driven by energizing people, innovative green products and an efficient sales network

We discuss the facts behind the company’s growth since 2019. Mansour attributes much of the success to bringing positive energy into the organization. With the newly motivated staff, the next step was to review the product catalogue and focus on developing new products.

Partnering with customers is key when developing new innovations and future machines, Mansour believes:

– We like to involve our customers in R&D because we want to ensure there’s a market for the product, not just create an engineer’s “wet dream”.

One of the key advancements Vaski has made is in the speed and energy efficiency of its machines. According to Vaski, their machines consume just one-fifth of the electricity used by their competitors, while also being two to three times faster. These improvements have significantly contributed to sales growth, particularly in a market characterized by rising energy costs and an increased demand for lower carbon footprints.

As new products were developed, the next challenge for growth was the lack of an organized sales force.

– Last year, we sacrified some profit to strengthen our infrastucture and sales capabilities, explains Mansour.

With nearly 90% of Vaski’s turnover coming from exports, I ask if being a native English speaker has made exports easier.

– It definitely helps. British companies are more likely to invest in a foreign company when they know there’s a British person behind it who speaks their language. Culturally, it’s also easier for me in America, they always love Britain.

Vaski’s core values align with company’s growth ambitions: Design for future. Passion for excellence. Partnership for life. Empower Individuals. Sustainability is the key component in these values, with the focus on designing future-proof, energy-efficient products built to last. In circular economy-oriented design, understanding customer needs and commercial potential play a central role. This way efforts to reduce environmental impacts are shifting from recycling and sorting at the end of the product’s life cycle to the beginning of the value chain, i.e., the design phase.

Picture 2. Vaski’s values (from Vaski’s website).

What does future hold for Vaski?

To strengthen its position in coil-fed systems, Vaski acquired Pivatic Group earlier this year. Pivatic is known for having the world’s fastest and most automated coil fed punching and bending technologies for sheet metal.

– The acquisition of Pivatic strengthens our market position in coil fed systems for the sheet metal industry. It was a perfect industrial fit, and the goal is to make us the world’s largest player in this segment, says Mansour.

As part of its R&D efforts, Mansour also highlights the importance of Business Finland (BF) funding for research projects. He hopes that smaller local projects will receive more support from BF, emphasizing the regional benefit of such funding. According to their calculations, every 50 people employed by Vaski will create another 500 jobs in the surrounding region.

So far, Vaski has not experience significant difficulties in hiring staff. The company’s growth and development have made it an attractive employer. However, Mansour notes that there are challenges in hiring the right people, particularly in software development.

With high energy prices putting pressure on the manufacturing sector, Vaski’s energy-efficient machines are reflected in company’s sales figures. Most sales so far have come from the UK and the US, but new markets are opening up, with the company recently securing its first sale to India. If Mansour’s diary is any indication, things are definitely heating up. He will be flying off to Vietnam and Hong Kong next week, followed by a brief visit to Hyvinkää for Pivatic’s Christmas party, then on to Riga, and two weeks in the US before a much-anticipated Christmas break with his family.

Future looks green, at least for large companies, and this bodes well for Vaski’s continued success.

This article was written as part of the Think Big! Supporting growth entrepreneurship in South Ostrobothnia -project whis is partly funded by the EU.  Read more:  Think Big! Promoting Growth Entrepreneurship in South Ostrobothnia

For this series, we have interviewed several South Ostrobothian companies that have experienced significant growth in recent years, aiming to highlight the reasons and actions behind their success.

Tiina Nieminen
Regional developer, RDI specialist
SeAMK