Scanreco Shows the Way With Wireless Radio Control
Published: 15/1
More and more machines in demolition, concrete cutting, hydrodemolition, and grinding and polishing now operate via remote control. This benefits users and people in the vicinity of the equipment. One of the leading manufacturers that develops and manufactures wireless radio control equipment comes from Scanreco of Sweden
Scanreco is one of the world’s largest developers and manufacturers of radio control systems, developing and manufacturing products for a range of different areas of use and machine types. Manufacturers of machines and equipment for the building and construction industry are major Scanreco clients, with many companies from the industries that PDa covers being major users of Scanreco’s equipment. Scanreco is now considered to be the sectors leading supplier of radio control systems.
40 years of radio control
It all started in 1984 when Björn Askestig and Kaj Johansson founded the company in a garage in Södertälje, a town just south of Stockholm. From the beginning, the company grew rapidly, and in recent years has grown by between 15% and 20% annually. Today, Scanreco employs around 400 people worldwide. It’s current headquarters in Sätra houses all product development, with a variety of labs and test facilities. Scanreco has a special department that ensures that all products meet, and often exceed, strict regulatory requirements for functionality and safety. Rigorous tests are carried out according to detailed test protocols, both in the laboratories at Sätra and by external test institutes, to ensure that the products meet current international standards before being released to market.
Scanreco’s system is mainly used for radio control outdoors, often in very tough operating environments. The verification process is extensive, which is necessary to ensure operational reliability as unexpected machine downtime can mean loss of income for the machine owner. Thus, reliability is important for users of radio control for heavy machinery and powerful equipment. In the wet room laboratory, both a water hose and a shower cabinet are used to soak equipment with water for a number of days to test that the equipment is able to withstand wet weather conditions. In the climate cabinets, the temperature and humidity changes from tropical heat wave to freezing conditions to test both electronics and mechanics under extreme temperature conditions. The products also undergo vibration and drop tests where they have to endure tough handling.
For example, a radio control system a demolition robot endures tough handling during every day of the year. Weather and wind, dirt, concrete, mud, and hard knocks are commonplace and the equipment must be able to deal with it all. The radio signal is also a crucial component of a radio control system. Scanreco’s radio signal has been praised for being very stable and that it does not disturb, or is disturbed by, other signals in the vicinity of the machine. Scanreco even has a former university professor in radio technology employed who primarily works with developing and improving the radio signals for the company.
Manufacturing and market
Though developed in Sweden, Scanreco products are manufactured at the company’s state-of-the-art factory ?ód?, located just west of Warsaw in Poland. Commissioned in 2022 with a workforce of 200 people, the ?ód? plant is complemented by subsidiaries in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and the U.S., as well as a number of employees in other countries. In China, there is a locally focused distribution channel with final assembly for the Asian market. In addition, Scanreco has a large global network of independent distributors and sales partners. The products are sold to machine manufacturers all over the world, with the largest single market being Europe, followed by North America.
“North America is the fastest growing market for us now,” notes Magnus Lundgren, sales manager for global OEM. He adds that the 35-employee Cincinnati, Ohio, assembly facility supports the North American market, which accounts for 20% of the company’s sales and is growing strongly.
Increases efficiency, capacity and accuracy
Scanreco believes that investing in radio control for equipment for demolition-related machines offers a variety of advantages, the most important of which is safety. “The operator can monitor and operate machines from a distance, and gets a much better overview of the work,” explains Mattias Kelam, VP product management. “With properly designed radio control, the operator can also significantly increase the accuracy, efficiency and quality of work, and there is also less risk of being injured by falling material. Lundgren adds that the same principle applies when working with water forming robots, which often scatter a lot of concrete chips around the machine, or when grinding concrete floors, which often generate a lot of dust.
Close cooperation with customers and end users
Scanreco currently cooperates with several manufacturers of various machine types in Sweden, but is mainly focused on the export market.
“As a supplier of advanced radio control, you are anonymous in this context,” Lundgren says. “Many of our customers want our equipment to be associated with their brand, which is something that applies in most global manufacturing contexts, such as the automotive industry.”
Other customers, says CEO Peter Lageson, want to show off that they have Scanreco control.
“We do not display which global machine manufacturers we work with, and in which machines radio control from Scanreco is installed,” he explains. “But those who work in the respective machine industry usually know who has delivered the equipment.”
Lageson goes on to say that in all manufacturing contexts, components come from different suppliers. Starting from scratch and developing, tailoring and manufacturing radio control for a specific type of machine is very demanding and advanced.
“It is basically impossible for a machine manufacturer to have the deep knowledge and competence internally,” he says. “That’s where we come in and deliver high quality radio control equipment.”
Kelam says that when it comes to customer relations, Scanreco ensure close collaboration with the machine manufacturer.
“We always tailor the equipment for them and for a specific machine,” he says. “With global manufacturers, it is especially important that we have a close collaboration with their technicians and development department. We often meet with end customers to create a complete picture of the machine and working conditions to get a good picture of how our equipment should work.”
The competitive situation
Today there are quite a few companies that specialize in the development and manufacture of radio control systems. There are now five very big players in the industry but Scanreco is the leading player in terms of unique products, turnover, the number of employees and market scope. Lundgren says the company’s dominant position stems from “our electronics and the quality of our radio signals, which are very stable both in terms of external influences and that we do not interfere with other frequencies. The robustness of the products is another aspect.”
Lageson adds the construction and quality of Scanreco systems is very high, enabling them to withstand great stress without any trouble.
“Our systems rarely break down, which is important to our customers,” he says, adding that Scanreco’s products are also modular, which makes it possible to relatively easily change, expand, and adapt them based on machine manufacturers’ needs and requirements.
Today, Scanreco supplies radio control systems for more than 170 different machine types, a number that is constantly increasing as more and more machine manufacturers and machine owners realize the benefits of good radio control. Indeed, if the work is demanding, tough, and sometimes dangerous, then a Scanreco remote control is an ideal tool.
The increase in robots and autonomous vehicles and machines used in construction, agriculture, and other sectors will likely be a new frontier for Scanreco.
Says Lageson, “This is a very interesting development for us, and where we are active, as wireless control becomes an important part of these ‘driverless’ machines.”
