ExTe: Taking Swedish lessons

IT all sprang from a conversation at Forestry Expo Scotland, held in Elvanfoot, South Lanarkshire, in August last year.

Neil Stoddart, chairman of the FISA Forest Haulage Working Group, had been in attendance for the launch of new posters from FISA and the Timber Transport Forum illustrating the minimum strapping requirements for typical loads on timber lorries. The issues of strapping and load security have been serious ones for the timber transport community for a number of years, but in conversation with Murray Clark of Clark Engineering, Neil admitted to wondering why hauliers in the UK were still using standard ratchet straps at all.

While in places like Sweden and Finland, tensioners and automatic solutions have become the norm, Neil was troubled by the fact he never saw them in his own country.

He told Forestry Journal: “If you look at everything we do in the UK, whether it’s to do with chainsaws, hooks for handling timber or harvesters, it all cascades out of Scandinavia.

“Haulage innovation has stalled here. We’ve got the cranes and we’re using cabs, we’re buying Volvo and Scania trucks. But the whole strapping issue made me think we must be behind the curve here – and we are.

“You look at what hauliers in other countries are doing and you wonder why we’re not doing the same, but a lot of people here will dismiss any innovation out of hand. You have to take them across and let them see it for themselves before they can really appreciate it.”

Neil explained how he wanted to gather together a group of influential timber hauliers from the UK and take them to Scandinavia to see how it was done over there. Murray suggested one of Clark’s suppliers, Swedish timber bunk manufacturer ExTe, could host, providing an insight into its technology and its nation’s industry.

A tentative plan was put in place and, over the following months, a team of interested hauliers and suppliers from across the country was assembled and travel preparations made.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances out of his control, by the time the actual trip came around, Neil Stoddart was unable to travel. However, I was able to go, filling Neil’s seat and documenting the events of the illuminating excursion into the world of Swedish timber transport, manufacturing and wood processing on behalf of Forestry Journal and all who couldn’t be there in person.

Setting off from Glasgow with Clark Engineering’s Murray Clark and Richard Gordon, I arrived one flight to Stockholm (via Amsterdam) and 300 km drive later at the hotel in Hudiksvall, ready to meet the rest of the party. This comprised Dougie Evans of JD Engineering, Ian Logan of JST Services, Kieron Owen of Kieron M. Owen Transport, Colin McKerral of Peter McKerral & Co., Peter Williams and Will Middle from Forestry Transport Maintenance, and Nick Jones from Alan R. Jones & Sons.

ExTe Fabriks AB headquarters are located in Färila, Sweden – a town with fewer than 2,000 residents, but home to the largest manufacturer of timber bunks in the world.

DAY ONE

Our first day began with a journey one hour west, to the town of Färila. With a population of fewer than 1,500, Färila is no great metropolis, but it is hugely significant to the timber transport trade, being the home of ExTe, Europe’s largest manufacturer of bunks, with a worldwide reputation for quality and safety. Its plant produces over 10,000 timber bunks a year for hauliers all over the world.

The company is privately owned by CEO Kjell Jonsso and is a subsidiary of the Extendo Group, which also includes New Zealand-based truck and trailer manufacturer Evans, railway solutions provider Midwagon, accessories company Trux and timber bunk manufacturer Alucar (which came as a surprise to some in the room).

Owe Lljunghammer, Joakim Eriksson and Ingemar Larsson from ExTe, our hosts for the duration of the trip.

ExTe’s story has its origins in 1898 when it began mass-producing agricultural tools and timber sledges for horses under the name A. E. Sandstedt & Söner Smidesverkstad. However, it wasn’t until half a century later that the name ExTe was coined.

In the 1950s, timber transportation by truck became the norm. There became a great demand for new, modern timber bunks and other equipment for the transportation of timber by road, leading to the development of the Excenter bunk with telescopic stakes and the name ExTe (Excenter and Telescope).

The company’s first modern timber bunk was the 144, which came into commercial use in the late ‘60s and is still a major export product today. It unveiled the first aluminium bunk, the ExTe Aluminium (or A Series), in 1971 and, across the subsequent decades, many new, innovative aluminium, steel and combi bunks followed.

Today, ExTe is the world’s leading manufacturer and supplier of timber bunks, with its most popular ranges including the lightweight aluminium A Series, the D Series (lightest combination bunk on the market), robust Type 144 and extra-wide, steel S Series.

Offering a warm welcome to the group with a presentation over coffee and pastries, Ingemar Larsson, ExTe’s sales representative for Europe, revealed the company recorded a turnover of 230 million Swedish kroner in 2019 – an all-time high. 75 per cent of its products are exported to customers in 38 countries around the world, with the rest staying in Sweden, where it has around two-thirds of the market.

Its mature markets are Scandinavia and Germany, while its growing markets are the rest of Europe, North America and South America.

One operator of a Liebherr material handler was tasked with loading timber onto two trains at the otherwise completely deserted yard, visited every so often by wagons with fresh deliveries from the forest.

ExTe has a very wide manufacturing portfolio, Ingemar said, but he described the 144, D Series, A Series and S Series as its “bread-and-milk” products.

Marketing director Joakim Eriksson said they were seeing a very clear trend in Sweden of operators moving from the D Series to the 100-per-cent-aluminium A Series, because of the lower weight.

“If you can load more, you have better income,” he said. “In Sweden, one kilo is worth eight Swedish kroner per truck. If you can save one tonne, that’s an extra 80,000 kr per year. That’s why the A Series is very popular here.”

Taking a closer look at the SR 12 high-strength-steel timber bunks, guaranteed to hold static and dynamic loads of 12 tonnes per bunk.

Ingemar said it was a similar story in the UK, with more and more orders coming in for A5s.

Meanwhile, the extra-wide steel S Series bunks – roughly 45 kilos heavier than their equivalents in the A Series – continue to be popular with specific hauliers in Sweden who care more about volume than weight.

ExTe has also developed timber bunks for the transportation of timber by rail and, as soon as the presentation at headquarters was over, the group took a short drive to the Ljusdal rail yard to see some of the designs in practice.

BUNKS ON TRACKS

Hector Rail AB is one of ExTe’s main rail transport customers. The company owns 175 bogie wagons with 1,239 timber bunks, 648 support bolsters and 230 end walls. A train from a second customer, TAGAB, was also being loaded on the same morning.

We arrived to find a lone operator in a Liebherr material handler who had nearly finished loading 1,200 tonnes of roundwood onto a Hector Rail train bound for a pulp mill at Skutskär, 200 km south. The process of filling 18 wagons with 16 tonnes of timber each had taken him a little over two hours.

“This kind of one-man operation is standard in Sweden,” explained ExTe’s rail business manager Owe Lljunghammer. “The train driver brings the train in, goes away for a nap somewhere while it’s being loaded and comes back a few hours later to take it away again. On this terminal they load about five times a week, accounting for around 300,000 tonnes a year.”

In Sweden, around 80 million tonnes of roundwood is harvested each year, 14 million tonnes of which is transported by rail.

All of ExTe’s timber bunks, stakes and support bolsters are manufactured using high-strength steel with a tensile strength between 700 and 1,400, with three base models able to be adjusted to suit customer requests.

Owe said ExTe had developed expertise in developing different timber bunks for different rail markets across Europe, New Zealand and the UK.

“In the UK, you have an extremely limited loading area, so we have to work to keep things smaller,” he said. “The loading gauge in Sweden is very generous. In the UK, you can get 4.5 sq m on a rail wagon, while in Sweden you can get almost 10 and there’s no need to squeeze it because you reach axle-load long before.

“You get a lot per wagon and they operate very efficiently, with one train making around 300 round trips a year, usually of around 200 km each. Trucks would take the jobs of 100 km or less.”

It was interesting to note that on Sweden’s railways there are no requirements for straps or end walls, which made loading much faster – though the amount of damage done to pins during loading is typically much higher than on the roads.

Providing further insight into his sector, Owe said: “ExTe’s turnover is comprised of around 80 per cent road and 20 per cent rail, but rail is very project-directed, so one year I may only account for 10 per cent of turnover and the next year, if there are a lot of projects going on, I might reach 35 per cent. When we do get an order, it’s usually for 2,000 timber bunks or more.

“I would say 80 per cent of our railway sales are for second-hand wagons. The reason for that is that the revenue is rather low for roundwood. So to go out and buy a new wagon, it’s very hard to make ends meet. But rail is not fancy. They don’t care about design or ergonomics. Just how much it costs.”

THE TU AND COM 90

Back at the ExTe factory, a demonstration was arranged to show how the remote-controlled TU tensioner works.

Returning to the ExTe plant, our group was treated to demonstrations of two of the company’s most celebrated recent innovations, which are yet to gain serious footholds in UK.

The TU automatic tensioner is already an extremely common site on the roads of Sweden, though its biggest market is Australia, where there are very strict regulations about road transport.

“Our annual turnover in Australia is around 15 million Swedish kroners and 90 per cent of that is tensioners,” Joakim explained.

Yet in the UK, where health and safety regulations are under constant review and load security is an ever-present issue, only one haulier, Kieron Owen, has invested in a TU system (and even he doesn’t seem totally convinced).

The TU is available with various accessories including customised mounts and different drums. The strap guide ensures the strap is wound onto the drum with no tangling.

To describe it simply, the ExTe TU auto-tensioner is a mechanical ratchet tensioner, driven by an air cylinder, which quickly apply hundreds of kilos of pre-tension force to secure cargo.

It’s not hard to see the value. No matter how secure your average ratchet straps may seem when applied in the forest, when you get out on the road there’s every chance of your load settling down and the straps losing tension – putting logs at risk of either falling out the back or slamming into the cab.

With the TU’s unlimited automatic post-tensioning, even if the logs settle, the straps are constantly tightening to ensure safe and secure transportation.

he TU has a tractive force of up to 1,000 kg and can be tailored to meet different needs.

Up until now, UK hauliers familiar with the system have been put off by worries it’s too expensive and British weather conditions too harsh. Cheaper and easier to replace a broken strap, goes the argument, than a broken automatic TU.

In the grounds of the ExTe factory, however, Joakim and Ingemar – with the help of Gammelbo Transport – were out to persuade our hauliers that the TU was an investment well worth making.

And true enough, it did make load security look like a walk in the park. Straps uncoupled at the press of a button via the air-operated release mechanism. Moments later, with the chains re-attached, the press of another button saw the straps quickly tighten again.

No-one could deny, seeing it in practice, that it’s an elegant system, demonstrably improving load security and significantly cutting back on time spent messing about with ratchet straps.

JST’s Ian Logan raised the critical question of whether it was expensive per bunk and was assured by Joakim: “Everything is expensive with ExTe.”

That’s unarguably true of the Com 90, which is both prohibitively expensive and prohibitively heavy, but is still probably ExTe’s most refined product and potentially of tremendous benefit to the right customer, making it possible for timber truck drivers to conduct all their loading and unloading without leaving the comfort of the cab.

This remote-controlled load-securing solution does away with straps altogether, utilising height-adjustable hydraulic stakes and automatically locking throw-over ribs, and makes for extremely fast timber binding in forests and unloading on arrival at mills. Here, it’s the remote-controlled timber bunks themselves that lock everything in place.

A demonstration of the Com 90 was next on the agenda, courtesy of Gammelbo Transport.

With the Com 90, no strapping is involved at all. Drivers load timber from the crane cab then, with just a few button clicks, the cargo is secured. The bunk’s hydraulic stakes lash together automatically and pull down to hold the logs in place.

During transportation, the stakes and throw-overs compress the stack with an even pressure to ensure the cargo doesn’t slip.

During transportation, stacks are held together using constant force, each stake pulling with a force of 1.7 tonnes. Strength is heightened by the fact the whole thing is steel, but this, coupled with extra pump, hoses, oil tank, and automatic monitoring, makes it considerably heavier than an equivalent bunk system like the D Series.

“We’re not selling a lot,” Ignemar said. “It comes down to the journeys you’re making. If you have to cover a long distance it makes no sense to use COM 90. But if it’s short, up to 50 km, you can save a lot of time with COM 90.”

This means there is only a small – but privileged – pool of potential buyers. Sweden has roughly 1,700 timber trucks, but only 10 have been fitted with the COM 90 after their driver-owners did their sums and calculated that it would improve their bottom line.

Joakim said: “These are customers who cover quite short distances. They save so much time that they can make extra trips and that covers the cost. It’s not lightweight. It’s quite heavy, but the time saving is so good it pays off the weight and the cost.”

Ingemar said: “The customers that do have it like it a lot. The speed is great and means they get fast-tracked by the mills. When they arrive and pass by the guys queuing up with straps or chains or whatever and breeze in, press a button and drive out again, it’s quite a good feeling.

“We have exported mainly in Scandinavia, to Finland and Norway. We recently exported to New Zealand. They have an internal transport route at the harbour and they wanted COM 90, so they’re testing it now.”

There’s no doubt the COM 90 offers an enviable work environment, with the driver never having to throw chains or straps. Joakim said that hauliers had found Com 90 paired very well with the HiVision crane operating system from Hiab. When used together, they made it possible for drivers to complete entire jobs without ever leaving the truck cabin.

“I spoke to a driver in the west of Sweden who told me he could drive five loads and never have to get out of the cab, except to pee,” he said.

SAWS OF SWEDEN

The trip to Färila afforded the group the opportunity to explore a modern Swedish sawmill.

Following lunch, everyone was invited to come on a tour of an impressive local sawmill.

Setra is one of Sweden’s largest wood products companies with around 800 employees. The group has eight sawmills including Setra Färila, which was established in 1949 and now covers 179 000 m³, its operation turning fresh-cut Sitka spruce arriving straight from the forest into sawn wood products like planks and boards, producing over 150,000 cubic metres of sawn timber each year. 25 per cent goes to the firm’s own processing units, while the rest goes elsewhere in Sweden and Europe.

Setra Färila has received significant investment in its saw line and saw equipment in recent years, which was plain to see from a tour of the site.

Out in the yard are hundreds of stacks of planks waiting to be packed and shipped. Residual products are used to make the plant self-sufficient on biofuel for heat production.

Though the mill has 65 employees, they were spread thinly across the highly automated site, with much of the decision-making done by computer.

For instance, when a log enters the saw it is measured with a laser, and a computer calculates the best way to cut it. The manual sorting of finished goods is primarily handled through a camera and optimization system from Finscan, with software quickly calculating how the planks should be cut to get as high a value as possible. The price of different assortments and lengths is in the program.

The final step is to stack, pack and label the contents. Out in the yard are hundreds of ready-made packages, along with mountains of chip for biomass.

At each step along the chain, someone is there to keep an eye on what is happening. However, should anything be missed, staff in the control room, monitoring the entire process using over 30 cameras, are able to intervene.

he entire chain of production is monitored from the control room using over 30 cameras.

It’s important that production keeps running to maximise output, but safety is taken extremely seriously. Lines along the floor mark the border of an infrared light system which guards against anyone getting too close to the machines. If the line is crossed the entire production line is immediately shut down (which one of our group helpfully demonstrated within minutes of us venturing out of the control room).

Generally, everyone was impressed, not only with the size and scale of the operation, but with the investments in safety and control, the exceptional tidiness throughout the chain – with each worker clearly taking great pride in the upkeep of their area – and the capabilities of the top-of-the-line computer system.

The mill has received huge investments in technology, with machines ensuring planks are cut to their optimum size.

It was explained that from a log entering the mill to emerging as a finished product takes around 30 minutes, but it took us a lot longer to make the journey from one end to the other.

Worn out from the day’s activities, the group left Färila and headed back to the hotel in Hudiksvall for dinner and bed (with only a few drinks in between).

DAY TWO

Day two saw the group return to Färila for a tour of the ExTe factory.

It was an early start on the second day, with everyone up, dressed, finished breakfast and ready to leave at 7am sharp. Our destination, once again, was Färila, this time to undertake a tour of the ExTe factory to see how its highly regarded bunks are made.

While ExTe’s very first production facility was a forge based solely on manual labour, today production is largely automated, with a balanced combination of advanced robotics and human hands.

Before entering, Ingemar explained the company had recently invested in new welding robots for the bolsters, which had just been installed and were up and running in time for our arrival.

Our tour began at the first stage of the process with incoming raw material, mainly super high-tensile steel sheets.

The steel is cut by laser using specialised machines, which work constantly, without the need for supervision.

ExTe employs 25 welders with six specialising in aluminium.

Tack welding takes place at multiple stations, before cut details are assembled and put in fixtures.

“This factory is working 24 hours, seven days a week,” Ingemar revealed, though for much of that time it is operating without any human involvement at all.

Cut pieces are then subjected to induction heating and bent to make sockets for the different bunks. Tack welding is carried out at multiple stations to prepare for welding by robots.

Meanwhile, cut aluminium parts are received, assembled and put in fixtures, then sent out of the factory for aging, going to a separate company to be heated up and hardened. After they return, they are anodized, creating a rough surface on the metal that paint will adhere to.

Comparing the weights of different models.

For aluminium bunks, final welding is carried out not by robots – who can’t yet be trusted with the tricky metal – but by skilled, licensed craftsmen. There are 25 welders in total employed by the company, but only six of these work on aluminium.

Members of the group were seriously impressed with how the factory was laid out, particularly to the benefit of the workers, with each workstation neatly arranged to provide plenty of room to move with all tools still in easy reach.

As the opportunity came to handle and test the weight of different stakes, Ingemar explained the recent change the aluminium pins had gone through.

“We have changed the stakes on the A Series to make it similar in profile to the D Series and make them lighter,” he said. “It has a flat inside, which makes the profile stronger, so we could reduce the weight. For an A7 we reduced the weight by about 11 kilos. That’s quite a lot for one bunk, just by changing its shape.”

GÖRANSSONS

The tour group pictured with Swedish timber haulage and truck racing legend Curt Göransson outside his museum.

Leaving the second half of the factory tour for the afternoon, we set out again for the second-last stop on our itinerary, which proved to be the surprise hit of the trip.

The group had been promised a visit to meet a local timber haulier who was in the process of kitting out a new trailer with ExTe bunks and TU tensioners. But we were quite unprepared to enter the remarkable world of Curt Göransson.

Born into his family’s transport business, Curt has been driving trucks all his life – though not always hauling timber. A former racing truck driver, he is a four-time European champion, claiming the title in 1986, 1988, 1989 and 1990. After his racing career came to an end, he returned to running Göranssons Åkeri with the help of his wife Barbro and his son Jörgen, and was on the verge of retiring in 2005 when Sweden was struck by the catastrophic storm Gudrun, which laid waste to some 70,000,000 cubic metres of forest.

Members of the group were fascinated by the apparent junkyard at the rear of Curt Göransson’s museum, which included several of his self-loader prototypes from through the decades.

In the aftermath, Curt was called upon to help with the collection, handling and storage of the storm-blown timber. The operation took five years and saw his company grow to reach previously unimagined heights.

In the Göransson workshop, a new timber trailer was being fitted with ExTe bunks and TU auto-tensioners.

Now in his 70s, Curt shows absolutely no interest in retiring. The sprawling Göranssons depot in Färila is no ordinary haulier’s yard, but a landmark and tribute to the man himself – literally. At the site entrance can be found a small museum packed to the rafters with trophies and memorabilia from his racing years, while out the back, left to gracefully rust, are some of the original independent loaders he designed and hand-built himself over the decades.

He now has a fleet of 30 active machines, several custom-built to his own specifications, and can claim to be the first haulier to have tested many of ExTe’s prototypes over the years.

Another Göransson trailer – with ExTe bunks – is sprayed clean in the company washroom and soon ready to be sent out to collect another load.

The arrival of a fresh timber delivery meant an unmissable opportunity to see the Göransson independent loader at work.

Inside his workshop, as promised, one of his new trailers was being prepared – 28 metres long and built, we were informed, for a “special project” in Sweden. After taking a closer look at the newly installed bunks and TU tensioners, members of the group scattered to different areas of the workshop and yard, seeking out other hidden treasures. The half-hour window they were given in which to explore proved far too brief to gain a complete picture or appreciation of the operation, though it was enough to leave some of the hauliers in the group feeling more than a little jealous.

PAINTING, TESTING AND TALKING

Freshly painted bunks, ready to roll out of the factory.

Lunch back at the ExTe canteen was followed by the conclusion of the factory tour. All the exploring at Göranssons had put us behind schedule and most of the workers had now finished their shift and were enjoying exercise classes in the company’s open-air gym.

As a result, it was left to Ingemar to show us around the machines and empty workstations, describing what would have been happening there if we had returned on time.

All new products undergo vigorous testing during the development process, in which ExTe simulates mechanical loading, transportation and unloading as well as vibration and no-load conditions.

At this station, assembly of TU units was seen being carried out by hand.

The painting process, he said, comprises several stages, each helping create a durable surface with a high-gloss finish. Any items to be painted are first washed to remove any oil and grease. They are then sandblasted and washed again to ensure the best surface for primer and paint.

Primer and a powder coating are then added to every product through the fully automated painting facility, with operators supervising the process, punching in any parameters and adjusting the paint nozzles and colours. The end result is a shiny, smooth and highly durable surface on every bunk.

Finally, units are stacked and marked with serial numbers, ready to be packed and distributed to customers.

The TU’s simple components – including its aluminium chassis – are designed to have a long life with little maintenance required.

With full knowledge of how they are built and utilised, conversation turned to whether TU tensioners could be adopted by hauliers in the UK.

From here we moved on to the area where TU tensioners are constructed and tested. Ingemar explained that the aluminium profiles for the units are bought in, but all other components are manufactured on site. As with other products, every unit is then thoroughly tested to ensure it is in full working order, with no leakages, before it can leave the factory.

Before we left the factory, members of the group had begun to have serious discussions about the potential costs and benefits the TU could have for their businesses. Discussions that would continue to rumble on all through the night and on the journey back home to the UK.

As day two neared its end, it was finally time to talk business in the ExTe showroom, before the first of the party set out for home.

Clark Engineering has been a dealer for ExTe for 32 years now, but for both Murray Clark and Richard Gordon, this was their first visit to the company’s head office in Sweden, so there was no question the trip was worthwhile for them.

Asked what he hoped others would have taken from it, Murray said: “A lot of these guys have been in the game for a long time and really know their stuff. As the ExTe dealer, our hope is that everyone had a good trip, but we also hope some of the new technology from ExTe that’s being utilised in Scandinavia will be of interest to people in Britain to help increase productivity and safety in the UK market.

“Increased productivity is what contractors want and improved safety is what HSE wants. These innovations from Sweden could have a positive impact on both.”

For more information about ExTe products, visit www.exte.se or

 www.clark-engineering.com/brands/exte.

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