China trade war drives Finnish X-ray plant expansion
Detection Technology is moving to a new production and office site in Oulu to expand its EU Origin supplies in the face of US tariffs on equipment made in China.
The site, located on the Technopolis Linnanmaa campus, is designed and built for demanding X-ray system manufacturing and will be renovated to meet the company’s specific needs.
Detection Technology announced at the end of 2022 that it would expand its production in Finland. During the first half of 2023, the company made a re-evaluation of its plans, and the decision to move was finalized in July. Both the move and start of production in the new site will take place in early 2024.
The company is a global provider of X-ray detector solutions and services for medical, security, and industrial applications. It supplies sensor components to optimized detector subsystems with ASICs, electronics, mechanics, software, and algorithms.
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The new site means the company is better positioned to serve its European and American customers. The expanded production capability in Oulu enables a faster service and delivery for customers outside Asia, and cost savings on US tariffs says the company.
“We believe that this strategically important move will make us more competitive globally. It is noteworthy that this is important also from a risk mitigation point of view. Production in Oulu will be modular and easily scalable based on demand. The production expansion in Oulu will not have any direct impacts on the production capabilities and capacity at our other sites,” says Hannu Martola, President and CEO of Detection Technology.
The company has production sites in Beijing and Wuxi, China and a small-series production of flat panel detectors in Shanghai and of a multi-energy (ME) product line in Grenoble area, France.
In the Oulu factory, the company will focus on the end assembly and testing of specific product families, while other manufacturing steps remain in its volume production sites in China. The Oulu operations has been supporting new product introduction (NPI) since 2014.
“We are known for world-class manufacturing capability with high flexibility. Our factory in Oulu is designed to support fast-paced volume and product mix changes and will run on the same high standards as our other production sites.”
