Valmet Oyj is a Finnish company and a developer and supplier of technologies, automation systems and services for the pulp, paper and energy industries.
Services
Valmet’s Services business line carries out mill improvements and upgrades, roll services, paper machine clothing services, filter fabrics, spare parts, life cycle services, support, optimization and agreements. Services‘ customers mostly operate in the fields of pulp, board and paper, and energy production. More than 2,000 of the world’s 3,800 pulp and paper mills are Valmet’s customers. The business line aims to improve the reliability, cost efficiency, capacity and quality of its customers‘ operations by solutions that reduce emissions, enhance the safety of operations, and use energy, water and raw materials more efficiently. Valmet has a global network of 70 service centers. The most important market areas of the Services business line are EMEA and North America.
Valmet’s biggest competitors globally in the Services market are Andritz and Voith, both of them with a broad offering while other competitors like Sandusky, Albany, Joh. Clouth, Leripa, Aikawa and AstenJohnson, have focused on specific product segments. Other competitors have limited offering compared to Valmet. These include Kadant, SchäferRolls, MWN, Bellmer, Hannecard and Papcel that operate either regionally or globally and Jinni, Wuxi Refine Tech, Richter, Beijing Up-Tech, TTT and AGW, which have strong local positions in their own niche.
Research and development
Valmet has a long history as an innovator in the pulp, paper and energy generation fields. Presently, Valmet’s research and development efforts focus on cost-effective, modular and standardized solutions to secure the efficient use of energy, water and raw materials and to reduce customers‘ total costs. Biomass conversion technologies form another area of focus. The research and development work mostly takes place within the company’s Finnish and Swedish operations. A large part of the work is, however, carried out in close cooperation with customers, research institutes and universities. In 2019 Valmet had a portfolio of intellectual property that included around 1,300 innovations.