EDITORIAL

Dear Partners, What’s Next?

Digital and heat exchangers

The combination of digital and heat exchange technology might sound surprising, but at Vahterus, digital plays an increasingly important role in everything we do as a manufacturer of welded heat exchangers. It’s critical in our sizing software, production technology, sales and marketing, customer service and account management, as well as in analysing and monitoring our processes. Today, financial administration would be impossible without digital technology. Sales and marketing have already moved to digital channels in many industries, but in the heat exchange sector this transformation is still in its early stages.

As such, it is one of our key focus areas for the future. I believe that digital will revolutionise our industry, and help us create new heat exchanger solutions for the next generation. We want to be pioneers in that development together with you.

Is the world getting warmer?

This past summer was exceptionally warm and very dry in Finland and elsewhere in Western Europe. Record high temperatures have been set across much of the world and an unusually prolonged and widespread heatwave has intensified concerns about climate change. The heatwave has devastated crops across Europe, leaving some countries facing their worst harvests since the end of the Second World War. Is this evidence of global warming triggered by our actions and by the environmental damage we’ve caused? A number of long-term studies support this conclusion. Only time will tell.

By developing safe and sustainable heat exchanger and heat transfer solutions, we can help to save our environment and build sustainable development for the next generation. One of the key solutions is applications that use natural refrigerants such as ammonia and carbon dioxide, where our fully welded Plate & Shell heat exchangers are the perfect fit. We will continue to invest in this work and remain active in developing new solutions for refrigeration and heat pumps.

In this issue, our long-term partner and one of our first customers John Wijbenga talks about our highly successful collaboration in the refrigeration industry, which we’ve built over the course of more than twenty years. I warmly thank him, as well as all our partners for the opportunity to collaborate on designing and building safe solutions with natural refrigerants. It’s been an incredible journey, and one that is certain to help ensure a stable climate for future generations.

Together we succeed!

Mauri Kontu
Founder and CEO