Junttan Brand Guidelines: The Kuopio Piling-Rig Maker Founded in 1976

A Finnish piling firm with roots in foundation work.

Junttan is a maker of hydraulic piling equipment based in Kuopio, in eastern Finland. The company was established in 1976 and built its first hydraulic piling machine in 1979, according to a company profile published in March 2023 by Technology Industries of Finland (Teknologiateollisuus), the industry’s association. The same profile traces Junttan’s roots back to the 1960s and a foundation construction company called Savon Varvi. Junttan’s own history page describes the start as the vision of Pentti Heinonen to create better piling equipment.

Exports began early. Both the association and the company date the first deliveries abroad, to Sweden and Denmark, to 1984, a year after the company says it launched its PM20 range of rigs. Junttan’s timeline lists its first deep stabilisation rig in 1988, the HHK A series of hydraulic hammers in 1993 and its first heavy-duty rig, the PM26-40, in 1996. Technology Industries of Finland says that in the 1990s Junttan became Europe’s leading manufacturer of hydraulic pile-driving rigs; the company makes the same claim on its own timeline. The association also notes that most of the machines Junttan has built since 1976 are still in service, passing from one owner to the next.

The 2000s brought new plant and new ranges, in the company’s account: a new factory in 2000, the HHK S hammer range in 2001, a drilling-rig platform in 2005 and its biggest hydraulic hammer, the HHK25S, in 2007. In 2026 Junttan is marking fifty years in business with an anniversary book, 50 Years of Junttan, which it has published on its website.

Rigs, hammers and a battery.

Junttan says it designs, manufactures and markets hydraulic piling equipment, and Technology Industries of Finland adds rotary heads and power packs to that list. The current range on its website centres on pile driving rigs — the PMx series and the PM5, which the company calls the first driven-pile machine of its Junttan Evolution series — together with hydraulic impact hammers in the HHx and HHK families, vibratory hammers and power packs. Its newest drilling machine, the DR5, is built for full-displacement and continuous-flight-auger piles, the company says, and it also sells ExcaDrill rock-drilling equipment.

One documented product is the PMx2e. Heavy Equipment Guide reported on 19 October 2021 that Junttan had built a fully battery-powered electric pile driving rig in which the battery pack replaced the counterweight. It was designed to match the company’s diesel PMx22 as closely as possible, carried two detachable battery packs and was commissioned in Sweden in late October 2021 by the Danish contractor Per Aarsleff and its Swedish subsidiary, Aarsleff Ground Engineering, the magazine said. Technology Industries of Finland wrote in 2023 that the machine is thought to be the world’s first battery-powered pile-driving rig and that it was developed in a pilot project with Aarsleff for the Swedish market. Junttan itself calls the PMx2e the world’s first fully battery-powered electric pile driving rig.

Junttan’s machines work far from Kuopio. The association’s profile says the company mainly serves customers abroad, and that its hammers have been used in Sydney’s Opera House Bay and on the expansion of LaGuardia Airport in New York, and its machinery on Little Island, the park built in the Hudson River. In Finland, its machines helped lay the foundations of the Kemi bioproduct mill. The same profile says Junttan has begun using bio-oils in its hydraulic machinery, noting that Swedish sites check that biodegradable oils are used, and that the company, small by the standards of its field, competes with much larger machinery groups on specialist knowledge, product range and service.

How the trade presents itself.

Piling and foundation rig makers sell machines that do most of their work out of sight, below ground, so their pictures tend to show what stands above it. The common image is a tall mast rising over a building site, often framed against a city skyline or a half-finished bridge, with the rig itself on crawler tracks in mud, gravel or sand. The height of the mast gives the photograph its shape, and the model code painted on it is often the largest lettering in the frame.

A second set of images is about tools. Augers, drilling buckets, casings, grabs and cutter wheels are laid out in rows or shown close up, clean and freshly painted, so that the parts that will disappear into the ground can be seen at all. Vibratory hammers, clamps and power packs are photographed the same way, as objects on their own, before they are lifted by a crane.

Trade fairs matter in this category. The bauma show in Munich is where makers stage large stands, with rigs raised to full height under the hall roof or on the open-air grounds, and where new models, electric versions and anniversaries are announced. Stand design, banners and the colour of the machines themselves are part of how a maker is recognised there.

Many of these companies also carry a family or founder’s name, or grew out of a contractor’s own workshop, and their histories are told through dates, places and model numbers rather than slogans. For this series we look at how each maker presents that history, using an unofficial palette and a stand-in typeface, and reproducing no machine, logo or nameplate.

Made in Kuopio, sold through its own companies abroad.

Junttan’s ownership has changed twice, in its own account. The company’s timeline says it became part of the PiloMac group in 2006 and that in 2010 the Brotherus family became the majority shareholder of Junttan Oy. In the same year, it says, it launched the PMx rig series and bought the ExcaDrill rock-drilling business from Pilomac Oy; in 2012 it added a component-manufacturing unit acquired from Komas Oy.

Manufacturing stays in Finland. The company says its current factory in Kuopio began operations in 2008, with assembly organised on cellular principles, and its timeline marks the 1,000th hydraulic hammer in 2007 and the 500th piling rig in 2008. Sales and service abroad run through what Junttan calls frontline companies: Junttan USA from 2016, companies in Sweden in 2017, the Netherlands in 2018 and Australia in 2019, Junttan Canada after it bought Canadian Pile Driving Equipment in 2020, and Junttan UK in 2023. Technology Industries of Finland listed subsidiaries in Sweden, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia in 2023. The company added vibratory hammers to its range in 2023, and its website carries the line “Respecting the ground.”

For a design guide, Junttan shows how a specialist from a mid-sized Finnish city can build a name abroad on one kind of machine. Compare Movax, another piling-equipment name from Finland, and ABI, from Germany. For this guide we use a deep forest green, a lake grey and a warm amber with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Junttan’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.