Metsäenergia Meter Oy is a fast-growing company in the energy wood business. The company buys and resells energy wood and manages new forests for growth. Metsäenergia, which has achieved a good growth rate, has recognized the importance of efficient data management in growing its business, which is why the company acquired the Forest by Pinja system in 2019.
Metsäenergia Meter Oy, a company specializing in energy wood trading, realized that the growth of the business and the number of employees created a need for efficient data flow and up-to-date information. The aim was to transfer information that was previously in Excel files to a common system where it would be available in real time to everyone who needed it. Today, the company handles the entire chain of energy wood trade in the Forest by Pinja system, and prints the necessary forest use declarations to the Finnish Forestry Centre, as well as the annual declaration data to the tax authorities.
In 2019, Metsäenergia introduced the Forest by Pinja system, which enables fully electronic wood trade. The aim was to improve data management and reduce the amount of manual work involved in energy wood trade. The deployment involved transferring data from a previously used Excel file to a comprehensive, modular system.
Forest by Pinja now serves all of Metsäenergia’s ERP needs related to timber procurement, felling, logistics, sales, and reporting. One-off entries are sufficient for the journey of the entire batch, and are available in real time to all company employees.
Metsäenergia not only considers the system acquisition as a significant improvement on the current situation, but also an investment in the future. The company will continue to grow its business and annual volumes in the coming years. Energy wood provides good potential for bold business growth.
Based on our comparison, Pinja had the most comprehensive solution on the market. Forest covers all the different stages of work.
Metsäenergia buys energy wood through vertical and supply trade, and sells the wood chips produced from it to farms, gardens and small and large heating and power plants. At the same time, it enables forest growth by restoring young forests.
In 2019, the fast-growing company deployed the Forest by Pinja system, which now serves all its ERP needs in areas such as wood procurement, felling, logistics, sales, and reporting. In the past, data were processed in a self-developed Excel file, which was highly customized to meet many different needs at once. In addition to timber lots and maps, the file also included data on payment transactions, withholdings to the tax authorities and data related to aid applications.
– As volumes and staff numbers grow, the importance of information flow and real-time data increases. We made the decision to abandon Excel, which had become so important to us, and commit to moving towards an ERP system. Based on our comparison, Pinja had the most comprehensive solution on the market. Forest covers all the different stages of the work, and now we can also directly receive from there, among other things, the timber buyer’s annual tax reports for the tax authorities, as well as forest use declarations for the Finnish Forest Centre, says Laura Hämäläinen from Metsäenergia Meter Oy.
Pinja’s solution brought Metsäenergia much-needed relief in terms of time management, among other things. One-off entries are now sufficient for the journey of the entire batch, and are available in real time to all employees.
The system acquisition was an important investment in the future for Metsäenergia, as the company plans to significantly increase its annual business volume in the coming years. For the last three years, the growth rate has been good and steady, at around 30% per year.
– I think we got the Forest system sort of at the last minute. We are not a huge company, but we couldn’t have kept up with the growth rate by using Excel. The key factors for us are the flow of information, the ease with which data can be updated, and the fact that it is now available to everyone at the same time. The reduction in error-proneness has also been a big relief. With Excel, for example, incorrect data entry created a lot of extra work, and finding and correcting errors was slow and tedious, Hämäläinen says.
Metsäenergia introduced the Forest system in stages. The first step was the contracting and procurement side, and the next steps were logging, felling and transport. Within two years, the system was extended to cover the company’s entire process.
– Overall, I think there is a good market for Pinja’s products in the wood energy sector. The sector will benefit from a single system and standard, and from a uniform flow of information in a single format throughout the chain. Everyone benefits when different parties work on the basis of the same information, Hämäläinen states.
30 % Annual growth rate of Metsäenergia in recent years
6 months - 2,5 years Roadside storage time for energy wood
16 000 hectares Sites to be rehabilitated in the territory of one province alone
2019 Deployment of the Forest by Pinja system
Forest by Pinja enables fully electronic timber trade, real-time harvesting and transport logistics, and real-time monitoring of costs, volumes and yields of the delivered timber.