NSS visits the factory in Sweden where the ScandInvent CNC workcentres, edge polisher and bridge saw are made

With communications between Britain and Sweden so good, they even consider the UK part of their home market, although a year ago they established ScandInvent UK, headed by Glenn Groom.

They set up the UK arm because they wanted to ensure that service and support were available on tap to the same high standards that they aim for with their machines.

Glenn is one of 18 representatives ScandInvent now have in some of the 24 countries that they sell to in Europe, Australia, the USA and the Middle East. And they will be adding more this year with expansion planned for the USA.

It is not bad for a company that only engaged their first employees in 2004 and even now only have 17 full timers, including Robert Jacobsson, the man who established and runs the business with his brother, Richard, and father, Lars, who are also directors.

With Sweden having a population of only about 9million people and not using a great deal of stone, Robert Jacobsson determined early on that he would have to find export markets in order to develop the company.

Today, 90% of their sales come from outside Sweden, although 30% of Sweden’s own worktop companies have invested in ScandInvent machines. ScandInvent won an award from the Swedish government in 2007 for increasing exports from Krona 5million to Krona 15million. A year later sales had reached Swedish Krona 30.5million (£2.5million) and ScandInvent made it on to the list of Sweden’s fastest growers in 14th position.

Being outside the Eurozone has been relatively helpful for ScandInvent, because the Krona has fallen in relation to the Euro and the dollar, making their exports to the Eurozone and America less expensive. Even in the UK, although the pound has fallen 11% against the Krona since January last year, it has fallen 24% against the Euro, so Italian and German machinery seems relatively more expensive compared with the Swedish products.

The price rises in ScandInvent’s products brought about by the exchange rate have had to be reflected in the prices because it has always been the company’s philosophy to keep margins tight and prices low. The C3, the original ScandInvent CNC workcentre, is still only just over £30,000 and its bigger brother, the C4 shown at the Natural Stone Show at ExCeL London last year, is only a little over £50,000.

As Robert says, the repayments on that sort of investment, especially at today’s low interest rates, could be as little as a third as much as employing a person.

The designs of the ScandInvent machines have been influenced by Robert Jacobsson’s own time spent in the granite kitchen worktop sector in Sweden between 1994 and ’97 and a background in engineering. He did not use CNC machinery in his granite business because what was available from Italy was too big, too complicated and too expensive. So when he sold that business he decided to make machinery that solved all those problems for masonry companies.

It was not until 2007 that ScandInvent really started making an impression in the UK and for many the 2008 Natural Stone Show at ExCeL London was the first opportunity to see the products close up.

By then ScandInvent had grown so much that on their return to Sweden from the London exhibition they moved into new 1,900m2 premises on the outskirts of Västerås, having outgrown their premises in the town centre.

The designs of the ScandInvent CNC workcentres, edge polisher and now the new cantilevered bridge saw are by now fairly familiar to the stone industry in the UK.

They all use ScandInvent’s own software used on a Windows XP platform that pretty much anyone can use, not just one person with special training. The software is constantly being developed in co-operation with students from Sweden’s top university.

Installation and training is normally completed in two days and on the second day the machine is in production.

ScandInvent CNCs are operated by standard PCs that can be bought in any town. If they need to be replaced, the software can be downloaded via the internet, as can updates and the 150 standard profiles that are available from ScandInvent.

Inverter motors (3.75 to 9kW on the workcentres) keep electricity consumption down and the water requirement is not great – 7-8L a minute on the C3, 6-7L a minute for the edge polisher.

Robert says one company in the US operating 24 hours a day seven days a week producing 30 worksurfaces a day on a C3 has only had to stop once in a year to change the bearings on the spindle – and they only cost the equivalent of £500 and took two hours to replace.

Everything about the ScandInvent machines is designed to be an extension of the way masons already work so that operation of them is intuitive and straight forward. “We try to think of the problems masonry companies face and solve them,” says Robert.