During the spring, several changes have taken place in the ownership structure of the publishing company. ITH in Örnsköldsvik has acquired Bertil Andersson’s 25 percent, and SFMA has now acquired Projekthydraulik’s 25 percent. This means that ITH owns 75 percent of the publishing company and SFMA owns 25 percent. For us in SFMA, it feels very positive to now take greater responsibility for ensuring that the industry has its own magazine addressing current issues and inspiring development.
On 2–4 June, the “Scandinavian International Conference on Fluid Power”, SICFP’25, will take place in Linköping. SFMA will be present there with a stand to provide information about our activities.
During the spring, we have been working on the sustainability survey that we will send to our members. The purpose is to collect figures on how many tonnes of carbon dioxide the industry saves through various energy-saving measures. We hope our members will take the time to respond to the survey, as it is important for us to be able to show that hydraulics is becoming increasingly sustainable. This is particularly important for skills supply, as these are important issues for young people. In connection with the survey, we will hold a webinar together with RISE where they will go through how to calculate emission savings in areas such as transport, manufacturing processes, energy improvement measures in factories and energy efficiency in hydraulic systems.
An interesting meeting attended by some of us from SFMA was CETOP’s Market Outlook, which provides a good overview of the entire European market. There, member organisations from different countries presented statistics on market development. It was very rewarding, and we will try to get more people to participate in their upcoming meetings, the next of which is in November. From SFMA’s side, we will also work on compiling more statistics from Sweden for that meeting. One interesting observation was that all member countries said they have to revise their forecasts almost every day because of the varying tariff policy of the United States.
Our working groups are very active. The Research Group is working together with CETOP members on an appeal to increase the importance of hydraulics within EU programmes. They will also ensure that SFMA is represented with a stand at the “Scandinavian International Conference on Fluid Power”, SICFP’25, which takes place in Linköping on 2–4 June. The Skills Supply Group will also participate in M-yran in Linköping this autumn, which is the mechanical engineering students’ career fair. Another activity is what we previously called “Anders låda”, which has now become Motion Race. We carried out that activity in Luleå, and even though participation was lower than hoped, interest was high. We are taking those experiences with us and will run Motion Race again next year in Luleå and perhaps also in Linköping. The Certification Group is working on an issue that has arisen regarding interpretations of inspection requirements from Swetic, more about which can be read on pages 21–22.
Finally, our Annual Meeting will take place on 13–14 May in Linköping. As usual, we have a strong and interesting lecture programme and will end the first day with a pleasant dinner together. The day after, we will make an exciting visit to the Väderstad factory.
Have a nice summer!
Jan Nilsson, Chairman of SFMA
