Provexa’s Chairman of the Board Anders Hultmark summarizes the vision for the future
Next time we meet, I will no longer be the CEO of Provexa Ytbehandling AB. Our longtime employee Anton Karlsson took over on October 1, 2021. However, I remain as Chairman of the Board, with the task of developing the company and the industry in a broader perspective.
Today, Provexa in Gothenburg, Sweden is the Nordic region’s largest and most complete facility for surface treatment. We have come here through large investments in new technology and production equipment.
But, the big change lies within corporate culture. Today, all employees are aware of our three most important customer commitments: Quality, delivery security and communication. And more importantly, they understand why it is so important to keep these commitments.
Delivery security is an increasingly important issue. It is important to deliver on time. Now we take the next step by focusing on the lead times, i.e. the time it takes for goods to arrive, be surface treated and returned to the customer. We used to have average lead times of 15 days, today we are down to ten days and the goal is five days. While maintaining high delivery reliability.
The investments yield results. Provexa currently has sufficient muscle to invest 60 million SEK in 2022 and 2023. We are expanding the factory by 5,000 square meters, the largest expansion to date, to create space for a large-scale facility for black anodizing, a new Geomet® barrel line and more efficient logistics.
The investments are the first step in a new journey for Provexa. The vision is to become the Nordic region’s leading knowledge house in surface treatment. We are well on our way, as R&D is currently run in a separate entity, Provexa Technology AB. It gives us credibility as consultants and the opportunity to license our self-developed processes. Examples are Provexa Earth® and Provexa Pluto®, which have been well received in the market thanks to good function and good environmental properties.
Furthermore, our organization with four business areas means great advantages. They work under great personal responsibility and the customers have direct contact with the unit that does the work. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we no longer have a sales force. The business area manager handles customer relations themselves with modern digital support, which streamlines the sales process for both the customer and us.
Self-developed processes also involve a responsibility for the end result, regardless of whether the work is performed by ourselves or by licensees. In order to offer sufficient capacity for the requested methods, an alternative is to make acquisitions. Investigating that possibility will be one of my tasks as acting Chairman of the Board.
All this is united in an overall vision: “We dream about a sustainable world, where our contribution is world-leading surface technology.”
Anders Hultmark
Chairman of the Board of Provexa