Berg Propulsion invests in thruster manufacturing site

This centre will produce controllable pitch propellers, azimuth and transverse thrusters, and associated control systems. But this investment will cause a manufacturing centre in southeast Asia to be closed. Currently, manufacturing operations are located across two separate sites, one in Sweden and the other in Singapore. Berg Propulsion will consolidate production to one facility. The production relocation is scheduled for the end of 2020 whereas the new warehouse facility will be ready in 2021.

Berg Propulsion chief executive Stefan Sedersten said, “With this move we will form a single campus operation across all product lines located in Sweden just next to our research and development group.”

This relocation enables Berg Propulsion to "greatly expand the warehouse capacity, the amount of spare parts and swing units we have in our inventory," the company told Riviera Maritime Media.

This investment commitment comes after Mr Sedersten and investment group Gula Skrinet purchased Berg Propulsion from Caterpillar Luxembourg. The deal included acquiring Caterpillar Propulsion and its subsidiaries with manufacturing operations in Sweden and Singapore and offices in Shanghai, China, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

This brought back the brand Berg Propulsion and a commitment to develop new products and continue to support sales of Caterpillar’s MaK and Cat marine branded propulsion products.

Berg Propulsion chief financial officer Jon Töyrä said the company produced similar products in both Sweden and Singapore. “As we now invest in establishing a single campus operation it enables us to better utilise our footprint and make investments into increased velocity through the synergies of the widespread parts commonality between our products.”

Berg Propulsion after-sales director Joel Edman also spoke about velocity of services. “This investment enables us to further increase our service levels and speed to market with aftermarket support at the very heart of our strategy.”

Berg Propulsion manufactures azimuth thrusters in L-drive and Z-drive configurations and marine transverse thrusters with rugged gears, bearings and customised blades.

It also produces MPC 800 control and monitoring systems with the latest microprocessor technology.

These are available as heavy-duty thrusters for dynamic positioning applications and auxiliary thrusters, suitable for harbour manoeuvring.

This provides clear information and full control of all propellers, thrusters and engines and can be configured to control and interface with a wide range of supplementary systems.

Berg Propulsion will also manufacture ship propellers and twin-fin propulsion systems.

Propulsion systems and market insight will be dispensed during Riviera Maritime Media’s Webinar Week series during Q3 2020, use this link for more details