Background

Craftmer Oy is a family business and dates back to the 70´s. Mr. Tauno Keskisarja, who is a professional shipbuilder, started developing tools, which made his own work easier. The first result from his work was the Jakki tool, which basically is a turnbuckle fitted with a ratchet. Fixed to the pieces to be installed it is used for producing a pushing or pulling force up to 12 tonnes for easy positioning of the pieces in relation to each other. After extensive testing and optimisation the ease of use and materials/ weight/ capacity relationship the Jakki tool has proved to be a success and so far totally more than 4.000 units of Jakki tools have been produced. Some of them have reached the age of 15 years and are still in service.

Product development

New products are continuously being developed in close co-operation with the customers to solve the problems related to their specific working applications. Most of the Craftmer products are used for producing a suitable force for shifting heavy components in the assembly of ship structures or other steel constructions. Using the products of Craftmer facilitates the installation of e.g. frames, bulkheads and hull sections. Alignment of stiffener ends and plate edges for welding is the second area of application of the products of Craftmer . Another objective with the design is to eliminate unnecessary welding, cutting and grinding of temporary lugs.

One of the latest developments is the welding manipulator for pipe assemblies called Pokki.

The essential features of the Craftmer products are their fitness for the exact needs of the shipbuilder, simple design as well as the low weight in relation to the pulling/ pushing capacity.

Marketing

The traditional customers of Craftmer Oy are the Finnish shipyards and other heavy workshops. The products have been marketed to foreign customers since 1992. The most important foreign customers are the Norwegian and German shipyards. First deliveries have recently been dispatched also to the American customers.

Veli-Pekka Keskisarja, a son of Tauno Keskisarja, operates the company today. He is in charge of sales directly to domestic customers and assisted by agents also to the foreign customers. All products come from the own workshop in Finland.