Jernbro at the Swedish Maintenance Fair 2024: “It’s an industry of the future"

Underhållsmässan, the Swedish Maintenance Fair, is the meeting place that brings the industry together under the same roof and around the same important issues. Just like industry in general, the maintenance industry is characterised by major challenges linked to both sustainability and expertise. One of the companies exhibiting at Underhållsmässan 2024 is Jernbro. “Maintenance has long been like emergency care. Now we want fact-based wellness care,” says Thomas Grönlund, sales and marketing manager.

Thomas Grönlund is essentially an engineer and since 2002 he has worked in various roles in marketing, business development and sales at Jernbro. With 1000 employees located from Trelleborg in the south to Kiruna in the north, Jernbro Industrial Services is one of Sweden’s leading players in industrial maintenance and projects. As part of creating a safer, more efficient and higher-availability environment in production systems and social infrastructure, Jernbro helps Swedish industry to become more sustainable every day.

– Underhållsmässan is an important place for us when it comes to creating business opportunities. It’s also about creating a presence and brand awareness. This is an important arena for us when it comes to getting our message out. Many of our customers know us locally or for a specific service, but we have a wide range of competences and services related to maintenance. Maintenance development, maintenance agreements, maintenance resources, workshop services and component repairs are our main areas, as well as our larger commitments in project form, Thomas says.

Development requires dialogue. The Swedish Maintenance Fair brings together players from all levels of the industry, which creates space for important dialogues.

– Underhållsmässan itself is an event for making contacts. It’s about business between people. Although the pandemic forced us to take a giant leap in terms of digital solutions, we must continue to meet physically to connect. This is where I believe the fair has an important role to play.

“Maintenance is sustainability”

Swedish industry needs to become more sustainable, as does society at large. And maintenance has a significant role to play in this huge transition to sustainability. The smarter the maintenance, the more sustainable we become. Thomas believes that maintenance is an industry of the future.

– Maintenance is sustainability. Although the status of the maintenance industry has been raised, it needs to be raised even more. Quite simply, we still have a way to go. We need to show that good maintenance is a vital enabler for increased sustainability. Good maintenance also means efficient production, whereby we minimise stops and disruptions, which are not resource efficient. The issues we currently face in our industry are important for young people, and this really is an industry where you can make a difference, Thomas says.

He continues:

– The second dimension is about lifetime extensions. For me, maintenance is wellness for machines and plants. The image that exists is that maintenance technicians throw themselves into an incident and then become heroes for the day. We want to create fact-based, smart maintenance where we make sure that the equipment we have works. It’s about reliability and taking care of your resources so that they can be maximised and perform for as long as is reasonable. Just think about what’s happening to our planet. We can’t simply wear and tear and throw away.

There is no doubt that proper maintenance creates sustainability and reliability while being resource efficient. Maintenance is a key to the challenges posed by the desire – and the need – to create more sustainable industries.

A place to be inspired

Thomas believes that skills supply, sustainability and safety are the industry’s most burning issues right now. Responding to the challenges and moving forward requires inspiration and collaboration.

– Underhållsmässan provides the space to create business opportunities and get inspired at the same time. To see what’s new on the market while making contacts. You want to develop, and this is a place to get ideas on how to develop your services.

Jembro will continue to spread their message while at the Swedish Maintenance Fair.

– We will share our message about Jernbro’s uniqueness. We have many specialists, and we can pool resources. In dialogue with our customers, we can adapt what we do and which competences we should focus on in a particular location. We want to be involved and we want to facilitate.

– I hope that those who visit the fair feel inspired when they leave. I hope that those who are curious about our industry want to start working in it and that those who already do so gain some interesting thoughts and ideas that can make their everyday lives better. And I hope that they take with them concrete thoughts and ideas on how to work with maintenance more efficiently, sustainably and safely, and of course that they realise this through continuous improvement when they return home, Thomas concludes.

Read more about Underhållsmässan.