Market study for log home building technology business opportunity.

This spring we had the pleasure to work with Ross Business School, University of Michigan MBA students to study the Makron business possibilities for our log home building technologies. North America is an interesting market for Makron due to the long tradition of building with wood and availability of raw material at coniferous forest belt.

The MBA students made a market study on the market size, different players in the supply chain, local building styles and legislative requirements as well as development of the market economics. On top of the background study the students interviewed a wide range of local log home building companies in the USA and Canada.

Based on this thorough study the Makron team visited several local log house builders and their manufacturing sites. We drove 1000 miles (1600 km) through five states – Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina – getting to know log home and timber frame home builders ways of working and manufacturing needs.

This was an eye opening experience for us. We see the potential on how advanced Scandinavian building technologies can support the manufacturers in the market. However, the building styles are quite different than in Finland. The next step is to invite the local companies to visit the Finnish Log house manufacturers in order to compare best practices. Time will tell if the door for Makron technologies opens to this great big market.