THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 18, 1997 TAG: 9702180295
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, staff writer
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 73 lines
On a skiing vacation in Austria last year, Lennart Hammarstrom turned one of those ``small world'' experiences into a new leg of his business career.
The former president of marine-engine maker Volvo Penta in Chesapeake ran into a man from his hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden. They got to talking. It turned out that the man was looking for someone to run a planned U.S. branch of his engineering-services company.
One thing led to another, and now Hammarstrom is president of BTB Mekanik AB's Virginia Beach-based U.S. subsidiary.
If his goal is realized, Hammarstrom will within the next few years be running a 100-employee enterprise with customers all over the United States.
But for now, BTB Technology Inc. is a modest affair. Four people, including Hammarstrom, work out of the U.S. unit's first-floor office in the Oceana West Corporate Park. A grand opening is being held today.
From the office windows is a view of a salt marsh whose beauty is magnified by its randomness. But inside the picture is stereotypically Swedish: orderly and understated. Hammerstrom sits behind a large teak desk. He speaks in a measured tone.
His company's purpose, he explains, is to help its manufacturing customers improve product designs - and in so doing, cut the time and the cost that it takes to get them to market.
BTB uses computer-aided design workstations and techno-savvy engineers. They're the kind of machines and workers that few manufacturers can afford big investments in - especially in this ever-more-competitive and downsized business world. But BTB can because it spreads its investment over a wide range of clients.
The company serves some of Sweden's biggest companies: Volvo, Ericsson, Hasselblad, Electrolux and Saab among them.
Since its 1991 startup, BTB has grown from its three founders to more than 70 employees. Annual sales now run at about $7 million. But Rickard Holmberg, one of the co-owners, says he and his partners calculated that they needed to expand into the United States to remain successful.
``We need to be closer to the market where the key hardware and software in our industry is being created,'' Holmberg says. He notes that BTB mostly uses Silicon Graphics workstations and Parametric Technology software, both of which are made in the United States.
The driving force behind BTB's growth has been the push to dramatically reduce manufacturing ``cycle times'' - basically, the time between when the product is conceived and when it's made.
Japan's auto and electronics makers get most of the credit for this. Since the 1970s, they've excelled at quickly updating and introducing products. To avoid being annihilated, American and European companies have become faster changers, too.
In Sweden, BTB has helped Volvo develop a new truck engine and camera maker Hasselblad design alternatives to its traditional look-down viewfinders.
Using computers and special graphics and animation software, it's able to simulate how various changes in design parameters - such as shape, size, material - affect the design's performance. That's a lot cheaper and faster than having to make physical models every time a design parameter is altered.
Though BTB's simulations are typically for internal consumption by its industrial customers, they're so eye-catching that these same companies' marketing people can't help but salivate over them.
So BTB's animations have ended up in advertisements and at promotional events like auto shows. That's been fun for the folks at BTB.
Hammarstrom, the U.S. chief, says sometimes, however, his company's clients are in a serious bind. That's when their designs are off-base or behind schedule.
BTB shoots straight, he says, even if it means telling a client its idea is ill-conceived. ``That's our job,'' he says. ``Our customers appreciate it. A lot of times you need that outside view.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Lawrence Jackson/The Virginian-Pilot
Lennart Hammarstrom, a native of Gothenburg, Sweden, is president of
BTB Mekanik AB's Virginia Beach-based U.S. subsidiary.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE