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Orders are coming in thick and fast at Norwegian capital company Stansefabrikken’s factory, located in the Lithuanian city of Ukmergė. The company forecasts growth of 10-15% and its turnover should reach EUR 21 million. Demand is so strong, the staff are working in four different shift patterns in order to maximise production.

Stansefabrikken, owned by Norwegian company STAFA Industrier, moved to Ukmergė in 2003. Its turnover then amounted to EUR 4 million. “So, over a decade we have grown more than four times”, said Nerijus Mašalas, the director general of the company. The plant produces a range of products and components, including TV frames, sledge frames, electrical distribution boxes, mailboxes, commercial shelving, filing systems, electric heaters and cooling equipment, ramps and even parts for Boeing engines.

Mr Mašalas travels the 70 km from Vilnius to Ukmergė every morning. Before his appointment as director general last year, he managed the firm’s Sales Unit for four years. The company’s management and administration team consists of 50 people. More than half of them live within a 70-km radius of Ukmergė: in Utena, Vilnius, Kaunas and Panevėžys.

The majority of floor workers, however, come from Ukmergė, and jobs for local workers are increasing. “The number of staff employed in production increased from 150 to 205 – it has been an impressive year”, the director general of the company said.

Around 50 partners in Lithuania alone

The company’s vast production plant, occupying more than 10,000 sqm, has the noise, smells and dust of a typical metal-works.

“We produce and supply fully assembled products that can go straight to the shops, but we are mostly subcontractors – we are sub-suppliers of metal products. What do we do? We punch a product outline from a metal sheet, bend, polish, weld, and paint it, add various additional components and assemble it. We have a large network of subcontractors in Lithuania and the Baltic States. They help us to fully complete the work,” Mr Mašalas said.

For example, the metal frames for sledges produced in Ukmergė travel to Panevėžys, where the product is completed, packaged and exported to Scandinavian countries. Stansefabrikken has over 50 such partners in Lithuania alone. Photographs of the products are prohibited in order to protect the commercial secrets of clients.

10 main clients generate 80% of turnover

The company imports metal sheets for processing from Poland. As much as 90% of the products are exported to the west, mainly Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Some products are shipped to Great Britain, France, Germany and Holland. International companies such as ABB, Bang & Olufsen, Stiga, Cenika, Høiax, New Store Europe, Chatsworth Products, and GKN are among Stansefabrikken’s clients.

“The aim of our group of companies and shareholders is sustainable growth and profitability. We are not looking for quick cash, but rather at the long-term perspective. Therefore, we get 1-3 new customers in a year, and the rest are long-term clients. Overall, we have about 30 clients in our client base. Ten of them are our main clients, and these are responsible for about 80% of turnover”, Mr Mašalas added.

Local training and employment opportunities

Stansefabrikken and several other companies established a metalwork class at Ukmergė technology and business school. “We then gave students the opportunity to get practical experience with us and selected the best for permanent positions,” the director said.

A higher education is not required for work on the production floor, but, Mr Mašalas noted, “you need to have a sort of mechanical understanding of what metal is. We try to ensure that our production processes are such that it is easy to train new staff”.

According to Mr Mašalas, the average age of employees is 35, with women accounting for a third of the production staff.

“Certain levels of expertise are required in production. Some employees need certain education levels, because they need to set software as the equipment is based on programming. For the rest of the employees, it is sufficient to know the function itself – to insert, to hold or remove”, Mr Mašalas said.

He also said that there is very little turnover of staff in the company. The average net salary of a factory floor worker is around EUR 725.

Investing in increased competitiveness

The company has invested about LTL 25-26 million over its 10 years of operations in Lithuania. From 2008 to 2012, investment in equipment and management of the company’s production processes amounted to LTL 10.56 million. A number of projects have been realised using EU funds.

Major investments are designed for CNC punching, CNC bending and powder coating production lines. In 2012, the company acquired a fully automated metal punching line.

Source: Invest Lithuania