As Normet continues its new technology push, it has decided to invest in its lisalmi facility in Finland, the company’s core production and research and development site.

The company will put €3 million-5 million ($3.35 million-5.58 million) into building a new digital testing centre, expanding the production capability and investing in production automation, it said. The target is to improve productivity in lisalmi to ensure both competitiveness and to have manufacturing capacity to support business growth.

The announcement came shortly after Normet launched a fully-electric offering for mining and tunnelling construction at the recent Bauma fair in Munich, earlier this month.

Its SmartDrive technology is a sophisticated and fully-engineered battery-electric architecture able to operate underground totally emission-free, saving costs at the same time, it says.

The company also used the event to showcase its SmartScan 3D laser scanning technology to validate the spraying quality and SmartSpray, the next step towards fully-automated concrete spraying technology, according to Normet.

In the latest lisalmi announcement, Normet said it expected the demand for both for fully-electric and diesel-powered machines to grow, hence its planned investment.

Kari Hämäläinen, SVP Equipment Business Line, Normet, said: “lisalmi is the core production and research and development site for us. We want to ensure we have the best technology capabilities to meet the demand of future. Streamlining the manufacturing process and increasing productivity is also critical to ensure our competitiveness going forward.”