Take off the competition vests
The number of hydraulics companies in Borlänge is unusually large, mainly because of the two global companies SSAB and Stora Enso Kvarnsveden. In addition, a hydraulics school in Buskåker accepted students from all over Sweden from the 1950s through the 1970s. Two of the school's employees broke away and started the training and consulting company ProjektHydraulik. In 2002 Annieli Söderberg and a few colleagues took over and continued the business.
AUH is an association with members that include hydraulics users from the steel industry. One question that always came up when they gathered was “How do we use all the energy consumed to operate hydraulics systems?”
When Triple Steelix started the Network Hydraulics project in 2007 in the Falun/Borlänge region many AUH members participated.
“In autumn 2008, we arranged a ‘Hydraulics Day’ for upper secondary school students,” says Annieli. “It was a type of recruitment campaign. We drove young people around to various companies so they could see how things worked in reality. A few weeks later, the recession hit like a bomb. Hiring came to a total standstill.”
At this point the network decided to tackle the issue of how to reduce energy use in hydraulic systems. Annieli was at the hub, which seemed natural because she represented a relatively “neutral” party. She submitted a project application to Triple Steelix.
Ultimately, there were two projects. First, five companies in the Hydraulics Network agreed to measure energy consumption on one line at SSAB for one day. Although they were competitors in some contexts, they realized the importance of working together in order to attract large orders to the region.
Viktoriya Absalyamova, a girl from Uzbekistan who was studying for a Master’s degree in the solar energy program at Dalarna University, was working on her degree project, which included processing the data that the companies gathered.
It was not clear that Triple Steelix would allocate more money to continue the project, which would allow a concrete proposal for conversion, along with an estimate of the energy savings, to be presented to SSAB. Annieli always felt Triple Steelix was supportive, but now they told her she would have to go to the board meeting and present her project in person. At that point, she thought it was probably a lost cause. But she had barely made it home from the meeting when the phone rang. It was Triple Steelix: “You’re getting the money!”
“SSAB has been extremely positive and the Swedish Energy Agency has also expressed interest in participating in an implementation phase,” says Annieli.
The SSAB facility is not unique, which means that other industries can benefit from the same results.
According to Annieli, the Hydraulics Network demonstrates a new way of thinking. They have trained themselves to find new forms of cooperation.
“We’ve taken off our competition vests. You have to let go of that feeling. In this gang, whoever has the best knowledge about something shares with the others. Together we are much stronger. The project we started far exceeded our expectations.”
Text Agneta Barle