Metso celebrate 150th anniversary
Today’s global company charts its evolution through a series of mergers, acquisitions and divestments
THIS year Metso celebrate their 150th anniversary. Established in 1868 as a Swedish ironworks, the company has evolved through a series of mergers, acquisitions and divestments, and today operates in more than 50 countries and has over 12,000 employees.
With its headquarters in Tampere, Finland, the company is now a truly global industrial business providing the world’s mining, aggregates, recycling, and process industries with innovative solutions for the sustainable processing and flow of natural resources.
During their 150-year history, Metso have been involved in many businesses ranging from steam engines, locomotives, car manufacturing, forestry machines, and pulp and paper machines, to valves, metal and waste recycling equipment, and solutions for rock and mineral crushing and screening, to name but a few. Today, one of Metso’s core areas of expertise is aggregates and minerals processing.
The first innovations that kicked off mechanical crushing and screening processes in mines and quarries were introduced during the late 1800s. In 1886, Bruno Nordberg, a Finnish migrant settled in Michigan in the US and produced some of the first crushing equipment for mines. In 1895, Bergeaud & Bruno were established in Mâcon, France, to manufacture single-toggle crushing equipment.
In 1928, Nordberg acquired the Symons cone crusher technology, an innovation that was to revolutionize crushing practices in mines and quarries, whilst in Tampere, Finland, Lokomo began producing their first jaw crushers at the beginning of the 1920s. These industry pioneers all became key components of Metso’s DNA.
The amalgamation of Svedala Industri AB into Metso in 2001 and the introduction of solutions such as primary gyratory crushers, grinding mills and vertical-shaft impactors was a key element in the creation of a full-scope offering for crushing and screening.
Some of the most recent Metso developments include innovations such as Life Cycle Services, energy-efficient HRC high-pressure grinding technology, Megaliner mill linings, the MX Multi-Action cone crusher and Lokotrack Urban jaw crushing plants.
After a century and a half of helping to shape and build the modern world, digitalization, sustainability and energy efficiency are some of the focus areas in Metso’s current research and development projects. One example is the Metso Metrics concept, which consists of a cloud-based, remote-monitoring and data-visualization service for mobile crushing plants. This will soon be introduced to the company’s mining and recycling processes too. To explore Metso’s history in full, visit: www.metso.com/150
