Cleaner and greener Tennant Company

Subcontracting specialist. Asia sourcing. Machining. Sheet metal. Hot and cold forming. Aluminium extrusion.

Phone: +46 0371-22 68 00 Fax: +46 0371-211 05 E-mail: info@hugma.se www.hugma.se

are inevitably borrowed by its competitors on the market. Because of this, it is vital for the company to innovate constantly in order to maintain its leading position. Resting on its laurels is simply not an option.

This is a point Mr Landin is keen to emphasise: “We constantly seek to improve the technology available in this global market, not just to sell huge volumes of products. It’s about identifying our customers’ biggest challenges and finding the best solutions. We introduce several new concepts each year: for example, we have developed automatic machines which operate by remote control and in many cases can increase efficiency by up to 50 per cent. Furthermore, it should be noted that the polishing of concrete as a dry process, now widely used, was an original HTC invention.

“Then we work with different add-ons. We have a mist system, for instance, to cool the diamond tools and prolong their life length. This works by cooling the diamonds down on the flooring so that the tooling system can operate for longer and cover more square metres per hour and. It goes without saying that this both cuts costs and improves efficiency.”

Other world firsts include the introduction of grinders with four heads, and ride-on floor polishing machines in sizes up to 1.5 or 2.5 metres – the largest currently available on the market.

In addition to its own development activities, HTC also puts a lot of effort into external research partnerships and knowledge sharing. It works with academies and universities, carrying out research and running educational programmes for contractors and others looking to move into this industry sector.

Sales markets and growth prospects

Although production is confined to Sweden and the US, HTC’s products can be found all over the world. It has distribution partners for its Hardware division in more than 65 countries in addition to its direct sales. For the Twister division, which has its own separate network, it exports to over 100 countries in total.

And where does HTC expect to see growth coming from in the next few years? Mr Landin replies: “Asia is a growing market for us and over the past year in particular we have also been increasing sales in South America. The US market will continue to be very important because the polished concrete market is so well developed there. Finally, the countries of the former Soviet Union are showing great development prospects so this is something we will be pursuing.” n

CLEANER AND GREENER

Tennant Company is a world leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of solutions to help create cleaner indoor and outdoor environments. Abigail Saltmarsh reports.

Tennant Company has innovation in its DNA, says Vice President and General Manager of EMEA and Global Outdoor Cleaning, Yves Derycke. With that in mind, Mr Derycke would like to see the operation ‘transformed’ – his ultimate aim is for a company that offers only chemical-free solutions and that has relationships with its customers that are second to none.

“Our global vision is to be a leader and our dream is that Tennant will be transformed,” he says. “We are moving towards this with our recent innovations and our new service contracts. We want to be a company that reacts to our customers’ needs. We can have fantastic innovations but they must be what our customers want and delivered as they want them. We believe we are listening to our customers more now and that – with the right products and right service contracts – we have started the process of transformation.” Maintaining its position

Tennant Company is a world leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of products for maintaining surfaces in industrial, commercial and outdoor environments, chemical-free and other sustainable cleaning technologies and coatings for protecting, repairing and upgrading surfaces. Its global field service network is the most extensive in the industry.

In Europe, it has manufacturing operations in the Netherlands and in Scotland, in the UK; elsewhere, it produces in three facilities in the US, as well as in Brazil and China. Products are marketed under the Tennant, Nobles, Green Machines, Orbio and Alfa brands.

“One of our greatest achievements of recent times, of course, has been to survive the difficult economic climate in Europe,” says Mr Derycke. “We have also,

however, launched a couple of new service contracts and are continuing to look at this area – at the moment, for example, we are launching a new service contract for our municipal customers.”

Clean technologies

The company is passionate about developing innovative and sustainable solutions to help its customers address their indoor and outdoor cleaning challenges, says Mr Derycke continues. Its suite of water-based cleaning technologies is redefining the way the world cleans and it is setting the benchmark for sustainable outdoor cleaning by creating products that help to eliminate emissions and reduce noise pollution.

“One recent step forward for us has been the Orbio 5000-Sc. This has the same kind of technology as our ec-H2O but while that used a blend stream technology this uses a split stream,” he explains.

Orbio Split Stream technology is available exclusively on the Orbio 5000-Sc, which uses tap water, a small amount of salt and electricity to create an effective multi-purpose