People need quality rooms in which to live, work and enjoy their leisure time. Quality rooms mean a pleasant environment, which is practical, contributes to good health and life, is easy on the eye and inspiring. All of us use rooms and our perception of what constitutes a quality room varies and alters over time as our needs change. Moelven’s task is to create quality rooms no matter what they are used for today or what they will be used for tomorrow.
Scandinavian values
Scandinavia is Moelven’s primary market. Our company is built on Scandinavian values and on our knowledge of living conditions, needs and aspirations in Scandinavia. We aim to be the natural choice for people wanting to build and live Scandinavian style, and consequently the market leader in wood-based building products and related services. We also want to be at the forefront of developments in construction based on Scandinavian building traditions.
Environment friendly raw materials and products
Moelven’s business activities are largely based on wood, a completely renewable natural resource. Trees in the forest bind the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and the use of wood for building purposes together with new tree growth in the forests helps reduce climate change.
Most of our products have a high wood content. We have renewable and environment friendly alternatives to other building products and solutions for houses and modular buildings, bridges and interior products.
We use raw materials that are taken from economically sound forests near our sawmills; we utilise all the material contained in each and every log, and we transport raw materials and finished products as effectively as possible.
We listen to users
The people who use the rooms and environments we create are our clients. We have a flat and open organisational structure, which fosters wide ranging but close contact with the market so that we understand how people make their choices. Knowledge of the current market needs of the users, and how these needs change can be disseminated freely across the group and is essentially what influences processes and product development. The end product guides the actual choice of raw materials and subsequent handling throughout the entire production chain.
The result is a continuous flow into the market of products and services that are in demand and which we are able to market effectively.
Our customer group
Moelven is a full range supplier of wood based building products and related services. The Scandinavian market represents 80% of our sales revenue. Our products and services are sold to customers operating in three segments: processing industry, trade and construction industry.
85% of the group’s products and services are used in new buildings, and in renovation schemes for residential and commercial property. A growing activity is the sale of raw materials for biofuel and for the production of pulp, paper and chipboard. The group also supplies wood products to the furniture, interior fittings and packaging industries.
Effective distribution is an important competitive tool for Moelven. An increasing number of customers want to avoid having to keep large product stocks. Consequently we adjust and develop our distribution system in accordance with our customers’ needs.
Industrial customers
Moelven’s industrial customers purchase materials and supplies from us for use in their own production processes. The excellent, stable and predictable quality of the raw materials we use is crucial for this customer group. We co-ordinate the distribution of products from different production facilities within the group so that our industrial customers can obtain all their wood products for their production line through the same channel.
Trade customers
Moelven’s trade customers purchase finished building products for sale via builders’ merchants. A good high quality product range that can be supplied at short notice to the right place is a crucial factor. Through our customer centres and distribution centres in Sweden, Norway and Denmark we coordinate sales, keep stock of products from our production facilities around the group and distribute them to trade customers.
Building industry customers
Moelven’s customers involved in building and construction purchase building modules and flexible building interior systems instead of choosing traditional on-site construction. The crucial factor is that our building systems require less time on the building site, are more stable in terms of quality since they are manufactured under controlled conditions and can be recycled. Delivery times are shorter than with on-site construction.
Products with a high service content
Moelven supplies products with a high degree of service content. Our aim is that products and services shall be extremely useful, and shall make things easier for customers and users. Our production is characterised by a high degree of industrialisation. In order to ensure production suited to the required purpose, the skills of our workforce, the effective use of raw materials and streamlined production resources are crucial, high-priority areas. The group is constantly in search of new industrial processes and concepts that can challenge or complement existing ones.
On-going product development
Moelven’s competitive strength is dependent on superior, on-going product and production development. We develop new products and improve and develop existing products further and we work with users, customers, architects and research scientists in order to push technical boundaries and find new application areas. The aim is always to create new products and services that make things easier for our customers.
Some examples of significant innovations in recent years are fireproof wood, which has provided entirely new possibilities for the use of wood-based solutions, heavy metal-free impregnation to protect against rotting without damaging the environment, the development of flyovers made of wood and, ready for launch in autumn 2008, a new weather-proof building system for a wooden house with up to four floors.
Our innovation company, Moelven Utvikling AS, helps people with business and product ideas to access a market. They support the group’s development projects and work with a number of product and process innovations which preferably are in the value chain from the forest to the market. The aim is for Moelven Utvikling to contribute to ten robust businesses or commercial products by 2012.
Moelven owns 70% of the company and Selskapet for industrivekst (SIVA) owns 30%.
Employees are part of an innovative culture
Moelven provides opportunities for people with the drive to succeed. Our vision for our employees and their relationship to the company is expressed through our personnel concept. We endeavour to sustain and pursue an innovative culture within the group together with effective and profitable industrial production. The prerequisite for all this is that we have competent, enterprising and motivated employees, who are eager to be involved in the development of the products and services of the future. Consequently, we invest in motivating and developing our employees. We run training and development programmes on an on-going basis in all areas and for employees at all levels within the group.
Moelven is also proactive in reducing the number of accidents at work and reducing absence due to illness. We have a reward scheme in place, which, linked to business margins, rewards low rates of absence due to illness in each division.
Sustainable, reliable and seeking opportunities are the three central principles at Moelven. Our employees are a crucial part of the business culture we are anxious to protect.
A flat and decentralised structure
Moelven has a flat, network-orientated, decentralised organisation and management structure. The company is organised into three divisions: Timber, Wood and Building Systems. The group consists of 45 operational units in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. As of the beginning of 2009 there are 3,285 employees, of which 1,756 are based in Norway, 1,492 in Sweden, 27 in Denmark and 10 in other countries.
All the business units are responsible for their own results and are independent parts of a coordinated network. The decentralised organisation gives the group stability, it creates openness, increases effectiveness and participation and reduces the need for centralised administrative resources.
This network organisation with its short decision lines gives us flexible production resources, which can be tuned to the varying requirements of local markets, also the operational units can support each other in the day-to-day competition. Since Moelven has units in all processing steps, from timber felling to finished wood-based building products, knowledge and competence can flow freely within the group along an integrated knowledge chain.
Long-term owners
Moelven Industrier ASA is owned by Eidsiva MI AS (39.6 %), Glommen Skog BA (25.1 %), Viken Skog BA (11.9 %), Mjøsen Skog BA (11.7 %), AT Skog BA (7.3 %) and Havass Skog BA (4.0 %). The remaining 0.4 % of shares is owned mainly by private individuals. Our owners have their own industrial companies that have a close connection with Moelven and a long-term owner interest in the group.